


Nothing and Nightmares

by Cas_s_Honeybee, Dgray3994



Series: Blame it on Singer Series [10]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bobby calls to check up, Cas comes in, F/M, Gabe makes an appearance, Hey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:06:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 50,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27086047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cas_s_Honeybee/pseuds/Cas_s_Honeybee, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dgray3994/pseuds/Dgray3994
Summary: Looks like we've done it. We completed Nano 2020 with a new hunt and some new characters to add to Jai and Gwen's family. Just like everything else we do, this is a REAL place, with some really wild history. Every place we stay, every place we send the girls for food and information, you can actually find them on the map, and mostly you can find their websites too. PLUS road food and menus. SO... we're starting to post next week, 12/14/2020 and we're changing the name.So, get read for a new adventure.PS: Changed from Reservation Lake
Relationships: Bobby Singer & Original Female Characters, Castiel/Original Female Characters, Dean Winchester/Original Female Character(s), Sam Winchester/Original Female Characters
Series: Blame it on Singer Series [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1210602
Collections: Supernatural





	1. Gwen

**Gwen**

_ “Hello, darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again...” _

The lights of the highway passed slowly behind my eyelids. One. Two… Three. But the singing didn’t stop. 

It wasn’t off-key, not like Jai usually sang, but started out deep, like Dean. 

_ “Because a vision softly creeping, left its seeds while I was sleeping…” _

Where was I? How did I get in a car? Where were we going?

It was warm, the heat blew right on me, but it didn’t stop the shivering that swept my body, didn’t help with the swimming feeling. 

Four… Five… Six.

I forced my eyes open, wanting to see everything, but the moment I did was the second we passed under one of the lights.

It was blinding. It seared into my eyes, caused a bright flash of pain mixed with fire in my head. I forced them closed.

_ “And the vision… that was planted in my brain… still remains.” _

The sound of a tractor trailer roared by, its air horn blaring, but it turned to a scream. A woman’s high-pitched scream, and underneath that, I heard a little girl. 

_ “Mommy!”  _

And then the next…

_ “Within the sound of silence.” _

And blackness.

The door swung open, creaked on its hinges, and I flinched. It caused pain to hear the sound, even more to see the light that flowed in from whatever happened to be blazing down overhead. I brought my arm up, covered my face with it, and groaned, which only served to cause more debilitating pain.

“Come on, hero, let’s get you in so I can take care of that.” Jai’s voice sounded strange, like I was underwater, just hovering under the surface, but she grabbed my hand, the one covering my eyes, and yanked me not so gently from the car.

My legs felt weak, my head heavy, and it seemed to take every ounce of energy that I had to move in the strange daze that came over me. I was floating but falling, and the outline of my vision had a strange haze, almost like I was looking through a kaleidoscope. 

“It will hurt until I can get a hold of one of our feathered friends,” she whispered, and I knew that only because of the tone, not the volume as she swiped the key and opened the motel room door. 

Blessed darkness.

Thank God the bed wasn’t far away, or at least her bed, where she lowered me gently to sit before she darted away leaving me swaying on the mattress. 

The light from the bathroom was almost as blinding as the streetlights, but she pulled it closed, leaving it opened only a sliver when she knelt in front of me. I kept my eyes open, wanting to see what she was doing, and from her position down on the floor, I saw her smile.

“It’s weird to have the tables turned, huh?” That grin was full of mischief and I wondered what she was referring too. It must have taken too long for her liking for me to register anything because she  _ hmmed _ , reached up with a wet washcloth and tabbed at my temple. “Hit your head harder than I thought then. No worries.” she shifted away, leaving me in a weird sort of darkness, and came back with a phone to her ear. “We’ll fix you up.”

She ducked down to untie my boot, then came back up just as quickly.

“Gabe.” There was a small, wicked smile on her face when she was fully back into view, her hand reaching up to gently touch what I could only assume was a gash on my head. I don’t know if I flinched or not, but she frowned as she backed away. “Hey, I kinda need your help here… No, no, it’s not me this time… I can’t call him because it’s Gwen.” She rolled her eyes, trying to get a smile from me, but I’m not even sure what expression registered on my face. “Yeah, sure thing. Right. Yeah, bye.”

She moved out of sight, came back before I could blink, and grabbed my ankle. I watched her with a bit of curiosity as she removed my boot, tossing it towards the bathroom door, then did the same with the other. 

I don’t remember how many times I did this for her, stripped her of the dirty clothes covered in blood and guts, and whatever else might have gotten on them, just to tuck her in under the covers, but that’s not what she was going for. 

She stood, reached out, grabbed the hem of my shirt and yanked it, with one quick motion, over my head, leaving me sitting there in a bra and jeans. There was a strange scowl on her face as she looked me over, but then it shifted to relief.

“Anyone tell you you suck at being the good guy?” She huffed out, kneeling down again to poke at my side. “At least there’s nothing broken, ripped, torn, or bleeding.” I must have made a noise because she scoffed and waved at my head. “Yeah, except that.”

There was a gentle knock on the door which captured Jai’s attention and she patted my knee before getting up to answer it. I was still in a daze sitting there trying to focus on the floor, on the obscure boot that didn’t make it as far as its partner, and nearly had it clear before my view was blocked by a light-haired angel. Gabe didn’t even smile, he just scowled, something I never thought I would see on his face, but there it was. 

“What the hell did you let her do, Lancing?” His voice was a bit too loud and I cringed at the feeling of pain that flashed along every nerve.

“Wasn’t me.” I could almost see her shrug. “Who’da thought a shunka warak’in could do so much damage?”

“Isn’t it more of a dog?” Gabe seemed confused, but Jai finally came into view, leaning back against the dresser.

“I don’t know,” she grouched, like an annoyed child. “You and your weird brothers made this shit up, how am I supposed to know what you were smoking when you decided that… that a whatever the hell that was would be a good idea?” I think I laughed, I wanted to laugh but the frown on Gabe’s face only deepened. “Just fix her. A broken Gwen creeps me out.”

“You hear that?” He narrowed his eyes, as if seeing inside me, “you creep her out when you’re not your usual self. Think I should add a little more snark to you when I patch you up.” I saw his hair move but not the swing that accompanied it. He turned to face her, an angry turn of his lips made him look a little bit more like a child and less like a messenger of God. “Ow!”

“Fix. Her. Gabe. Stop fucking around.” Jai was half in a panic, and I couldn’t figure out why. Of course, at the moment, I couldn’t figure out much, except that the shivering in my body had changed from adrenaline to a let down and now... “Look, she’s going into shock.”

“Fine,” he stood, giving me a weird view of his belt buckle before I felt the tips of his fingers against my forehead and the warmth that followed seemed to spread faster than I ever remembered Cas’ doing. When he stepped back, he wasn’t surrounded by the aura anymore, things didn’t hurt to focus on and my whole body felt… well, I guess fixed was the only word to use. “There. One whole Gwen Bancroft, complete with original snark.”

With a heavy breath, I saw her chin fall to her chest. “Thank you.”

“Sure thing,” and there was that cheeky smile as I grabbed the blanket I sat on and wrapped it around me, observing the way he moved towards her, took in whatever wounds she had, and quickly placed a hand on her cheek. “Next time, don’t wait until a major concussion happens to call.”

“Wasn’t my major concussion this time,” she snipped, eyes narrowed before they drooped. He had healed whatever had been wrong with her, not that I had the time to check, before he kissed her forehead and disappeared out of the room. 

Poof, just like that.

“You couldn’t have called Cas?” I managed to say, and actually hear it this time, knowing I had spoken the right words.

“Are you kidding? He’s with Dean.” She scoffed, turned, and made her way towards the table. “Next time you wanna take something on, why not wait for back-up?”

“I had it under control,” was the only thing I could give her.

“Ah-huh.”

Honestly, from what I remembered about the whole hunt, nothing was in either of our control. This was the third county in as many days, and the last of the monsters we had to deal with. It was smarter than the rest, catching me off guard when the two of us had separated. Jai still wasn’t that far away when it attacked, but there was enough space between us that she couldn’t get to me before I was thrown against the wall. 

I supposed that was where I got the head injury from. It had been a while since I suffered from a concussion, and experiencing just this one made me wonder how she dealt with so many. The pain alone was nearly intolerable. 

Jai popped a beer, then another, and moved towards me, holding one out. “You or me?”

“What?” Maybe I was still a little dazed, or I just didn’t understand the question.

“Shower?” She tilted her head towards the bathroom, “we’re both still kinda covered in monster guts, so… you or me?”

Looking over her expression, it was easy to see what the answer  _ should  _ be and I relented, taking the beer from her hand, before testing out just how sturdy my legs were. They held up pretty good and I took a long pull on the bottle in my hand before I handed it back to her and headed into the bathroom, closing the door behind me.

At least the water was hot enough and the pressure was nice, but I couldn’t shake the visions in my head, or the sounds of the little girl screaming. I braced my elbows against the wall, water at my back, and pressed my hands to my ears, trying to drown her out, but it was relentless. The sounds of her small voice screaming in terror, the way she said  _ Mommy _ with such pain, but there was something else, something just under the surface that I couldn’t quite grasp, about how familiar it was.

I could feel the tears on my face, struggled not to let the sudden weakness of my knees send me down to the ceramic floor, and fought to breathe. 

Just as the door opened.

I caught myself, opened my eyes, and took in a few deep breaths.

“Doing okay, G?” That shook me out of it as much as anything else, the concern in her voice and I wondered if her other half might have picked up on it. “Hey!”

“I’m fine,” I mumbled, head still against my hands. 

“Good,” there was doubt in that word, but she wouldn’t press, not until absolutely necessary. “Don’t use it all up, yeah? Some of us got a little more take-out on them than others.”

I couldn’t help the scoff, or the laugh that followed, because it was her… so totally her, to take a hunt and make it something she thought was comical. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Whatever, just make sure you dry off, I think the heater just went,” and the door closed behind her. 

I stood straight and pushed back the curtain. There was something about that statement that just sounded wrong. It was hot in the bathroom, not that it wouldn’t be with the temperature of the water and steam, but the heater suddenly going, the temperature suddenly dropping? I was out there in a bra and jeans, caked in something other than water, but still wet and it hadn’t been long enough to drop that many degrees, had it?

I shut the water off, grabbed a towel and did what she asked, dried off as best I could, before I swung the door open.

And was hit by a wave of cold air.

She was right, something was up. Jai was wrapped in a blanket, boots and socks kicked off, sitting cross legged on the bed staring at the television. The news was on, and she seemed completely enthralled by it, enough so that she didn’t hear me come out, didn’t blink when I walked by, and didn’t move when I sat down on the bed beside her, finally dressed.

“Hey,” it was a word and a light punch to her arm that got her attention. Her brow furrowed as she looked at me a bit confused.

“Heater’s on the fritz,” she mumbled, looking me over, before she went back to the news report. 

“I got that.” I tugged at the blanket, getting her to untangle herself before she let me have an end and scooted closer. Together, we stared at the uneventful happenings going on in Dawson County, Montana, until she quickly shucked off the blanket.

“Shower time.” She announced it like it was a big production, but I knew it was a sudden move to keep from succumbing to sleep, and Jai disappeared into the bathroom, the clean change of clothing tucked under her arm along with her travel bag.

I got up and moved towards the heater, curious about what was going on, but when I stopped by it, I just had this feeling. The controls seemed set, they were on, and it was blowing air, but it wasn’t blowing  _ cold _ air. I let my hand hover over it for a moment, feeling the heat, and stiffened at the sudden tingle at the back of my neck.

There was someone behind me.

I rolled my shoulders, shifted on my feet, moving just a little to the left where Jai’s bag lay, and slipped my hand into it. I could feel the moment my fingers traced over the sheath of the hell blade she had tucked away, and let them wrap around it before pivoting as quickly as I could.

There was nothing.

I was alone in the room, but the strange way my hair stood on end told me that something wasn’t right. 

That was when warmth filled the space around me. The temperature rose, the room heated up and I could almost hear the off-key singing in the bathroom. Something about limes and coconuts. Letting the blade slip back into its rightful place, I tiptoed across the room once more, pulled back the covers of my own bed, and tucked myself in, shutting off the light. 

The room fell into a strange darkness, one that seemed to only encase the area I was in, but the overly dramatic way the bathroom door swung open burned away the shadows. Jai stood there, tank top and boxers, with a hairbrush in her hand frozen in a pose that would only indicate she had intended to come out singing, but something had stopped her.

“Hey,” that was a little excited, “you fixed it! Awesome!”

She flicked off the light and ran for the covers, diving under them as she reached for the remote. 

The sound of her breathing, the small chuckles she let out as she flipped through the B-side horror movies, and the light from the television gave me peace, enough to fall into a dreamless sleep.

~~~~~

Breakfast always came too early, and in this case, it wasn’t a lie. 

We had managed to get six hours at least after the whole heater debacle, but Jai was up and moving as soon as the sun hit the room, which meant coffee and something full of carbs. Currently… that meant sitting in a small place called Penny’s Diner in the middle of nowhere with eggs and pancakes in front of us, and Jai looking through Instagram.

“Anything?” I questioned quietly digging into the fried red potatoes on my plate.

“Nah, the internet has nothing good on.” She put down the phone and dug into her eggs with gusto. “Gotta call Bobby soon though, he’s gonna want an update.”

“Can I finish my bacon first?” I didn’t mean to snap, but everything just felt off.

“Course. Like I’mma be in a rush to tell him that you got bonked, and we had to call in a winged paramedic.” She said it with a roll of her eyes, which I didn’t see. She huffed, put the fork down and folded her arms on the table. “Is it bad that I really just want to go home?”

“No,” because it really wasn’t. 

It had been a two month streak of traveling from one town to another, a couple cities in between just to throw in something different. The fact that we had been away from home -- and the boys -- for so long was taking its toll on Jai. She was skirting the edge of almost giving in, and even I was tempted to just call Bobby and throw in the towel.

That was when the tone went off. She never kept it on silent, unless we were out on a hunt, and right now, the weird robotic noise it was making seemed to hit every nerve in my head. I was starting to wonder if Gabe didn’t miss something last night. She picked up, licked the syrup from her lips and narrowed her eyes on the screen before her head tilted just a bit and her brows did that furrowed “Dean” look.

She sat back, closed her eyes and put the phone down. “I hate him.”

“Liar,” I mumbled as I took the device and brought it closer. There -- on the screen -- was a message from Bobby Singer himself. 

“ _ Call asap. Hunt in PNW.” _

“Where exactly are the boys?” I questioned, setting it down again, but didn’t add the fact that I wanted to know why he wasn’t sending them. We’d been out in that region of the states enough the last few years to never make me go out that way again.

“Mississippi?” Jai shrugged, picking up a slice of bacon. “Something about a house…”

“The McRaven house?” but she just raised her hands and shrugged again, like a kid, the  _ I don’t know _ unvoiced, but certainly there. “You would think Bobby had enough hunters to take on a mild case of a haunting.”

“Yeah, well, that old coot isn’t in his right mind these days.” There was annoyance and worry in her voice but she didn’t bother to look up at me once. “Does it say where in the Pacific Northwest?”

“Crater Lake?” 

“Sounds ominous enough.” She smiled up at the waitress who dropped the check off and refilled her cup, but waited for the older woman to disappear before she continued. “Any other tidbits, or does he really want us to call and find out everything?”

“It’s Bobby, a check-in is always required.” 

“Ugh!” Jai grabbed the check, glanced over it, and pulled a few twenties from her pocket. She always carried cash where I didn’t and this was the reason why. As soon as we were done, we could head out, no waiting to sign, no need for change. 

It was also a blatant hint in my direction.

“Can I at least finish my hot chocolate?” 

Her reply was a smirk and grabbing at a few sugars to prepare her coffee. Maybe she wasn’t in the mood to rush.

~~~~~

As we moved down the road away from Glendive heading west, my eyes were on the file currently loaded on the screen.

Jai tapped on the steering wheel as Bobby’s voice droned on over the phone about how irresponsible it was for us to  _ not _ check in as soon as we made it back to the room and to make him wait the six to seven hours thinking we were dead. 

It was a good thing he couldn’t see the way Jai’s eyes rolled back in her head, or how she was thumping the back of it against the headrest.

“Bobby!” she finally yelled, and that took her a little longer than I would have guessed, “tell us about this whole thing you have us playing with.”

_ “Tell me about the shunka warak’in.” _

“No, bite me!” Jai bitched back, but sighed and started talking. “It was a pack, six of them total, we found it, we killed it. End of story. What more do you need, old man?”

_ “Are you sure you got all of them?” _

“Ugh, what are you, my mother?” But there was no anger behind it, this was just their way of communicating. It was actually kind of cute when you could see the smile on her face, and hear it in his voice. “We made sure to clear out the whole pack, but I think a follow up would be a good idea. There was just something different about the last one.”

_ “Different is not good.” _

“It seemed more intelligent,” I added to the pot, “for a dog.”

_ “Explain.” _

“It’s a wolf-like creature, but doesn’t seem to have the ability to shift like a certain pack we know,” and this got a scoff from Jai. “The coordination it took to not only separate but strike almost simultaneously shows a level of intelligence that’s beyond anything we’ve seen in four-legged cryptids, at least, in our dealings.”

“Whiskey,” Jai mumbled, grinning which only got me to stare at her with narrowed eyes because I wasn’t sure if she was picking on the jackalope or giving him a compliment. 

_ “Is it something we need to be wary of?” _

“No, just aware of.”

“Okay, you heard our deal, now tell us yours,” Jai fidgeted in the seat, flipped on her blinker and headed onto I-90 west. 

_ “We’re not children, this isn’t a game between you and Dean of you show me yours…” _

“Ew, gross. Bite your tongue.” She was thoroughly disgusted. “We haven’t got all day, Uncle B, just get on with it.”

“Technically, we have at least nine hours before we stop,” and my eyes widened at the knowledge that those words had actually left my lips, and certainly  _ did not  _ remain in my head. I looked at her, as she stared at me, giving me a little shake in disapproval before concentrating on the road again. 

She tapped the phone, muting it quickly before she glanced at me. “Gabe fucked up, didn’t he? Did he miss a spot?”

Panicked, I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“When we get to where the hell we’re going, we’re calling him back.” She tapped the phone and cleared her throat. “Crater Lake, Uncle B.”

_ “Fine,” _ papers rustled in the background and the thump of what I assumed was a coffee cup was loud enough to make me jump.  _ “Got a call from the Wessons…” _

“Really?” Jai blinked, a smirk on her face. “Why not just call in the Remingtons? I’m sure they have nothing better to do, or the Smiths, that would make a good pair.”

“Stop it,” but I couldn’t hide the smile.

_ “Anyway, Chris and Sarah are good kids. Their mother is an old friend of mine, so make sure you take care with this one.” _

“When you say old friend…”

“Shut up,” I snapped at her, not that I wasn’t curious, but I just needed him to get through this speil. She widened her eyes and stuck out her tongue. “Child.” That was when she mimicked me silently and I knew she hadn’t had nearly enough sleep.

_ “Can I go on? Are you two finished?” _

“Go ahead.”

_ “Their home base is up in Chiloquin, Oregon, but they were asked to check out Crater Lake when a friend went missing in the area.” _

“Why does that sound familiar?” Jai whispered, not really loud enough for him but something I caught.

“I know what you mean.” I opened a new tab, and typed in Crater Lake. Of course, the archives pulled it up just as fast as Google did with a map, but I kept my mouth shut.

_ “Been a lot of disappearances up that way over the years, but this one got on a hunter’s radar, which leads me to believe there’s something else going on besides dumbass hikers not knowing how to read a compass.” _

“So the only thing that makes this one of ours is that there’s two hunters involved?” Jai seemed to be weighing all the information she had and I could tell by the look in her eyes that it wasn’t adding up. “Nineteen hours on the road for a favor?”

_ “Don’t get snippy with me, girl, just do what you’re asked.” _

“Okay, fine, but after this… we’re going home.” And that was anger. I reached over, placed my hand on her wrist as she gripped the wheel and by the scowl on her face, and the dark look in her eyes, I knew control was slipping. “I got this.”

“Sure you do,” giving her a little pat, I released her and went back to the screen. “We’ll be in touch as soon as we get to our next stop. Can you email me what you have, or what they sent you?”

_ “Fine.”  _

The line went dead.

Jai huffed, cracked the window, and hummed to herself, which made me think…

“Were you singing last night?”

“Define last night.”

“When I was out of it, on the way back to the motel?”

There was a silent pause and a slow shake of her head. “No. But…” she grinned, “I was swearing, loudly… at everything. Does that help?”

“Not really.”

“Why?” 

I turned in my seat, adjusted the laptop, and leaned back against the door. “I heard you singing  _ Sound of Silence _ .”

“Oh, yeah? Did I hit David’s notes? Was I good?”

“It wasn’t that version.” 

And that made her pause.

“Why the hell would I sing Simon and Garfunkel?”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s old, and it’s Simon and Garfunkel.” There were just times of the day where she made little to no sense at all. Now was one of those times. “So, you heard me singing when you were concussed?”

“I heard someone singing.”

“The  _ Sound of Silence _ ? What happened next?”

“I heard someone screaming.” That got her to look over, a little confused, a little worried.

“Definitely concussed. No one was screaming, let alone singing.”

“Okay, maybe I was just really out of it.”

“That happens with a brain injury,” she shrugged, set the cruise on the car, and relaxed back in the seat. 

I didn’t want to tell her that I had heard a little girl, or the feeling of being watched in the motel, so… I just went back to the lore. As I read it over, I found myself delving deeper into the myths surrounding the area and Wizard Island. 

The urban legends alone for Crater Lake mentioned more than a few indigenous myths before going into the spooky side of it, which had more to do with lake monsters and ghosts than anything else. It was like someone had just taken a hat full of lore written on note cards and picked out a few to go with.

“This place is insane.” 

“It’s Oregon. You remember the last time we were in the area, right? The whole state is insane.” Her logic wasn’t sound, but it still made sense. “What did our little hunters fall into? Anything to back up their disappearance theory?”

“Looks like it’s been going on for at least a hundred years or more. Biggest one was in 75’--” 

“Good year.”

“But with a similar episode having happened in 1911. The lore looks as if it’s just misguided attempts to outlast a winter storm, but the one in 75’ was a little weird because the photographer was lost in the storm only to be found a year later by hikers who thought they saw a skeleton down in a small canyon.”

“This sounds like it’s just about to get better and better.”

“The problem was that once they got down there, they found that it was only his bottom half.”

“So?”

“Twelve miles from where his camp was…”

“Are you sure we should be going here?”

“Just let me finish.” I kept reading before I let out what I had. “Apparently, there were twelve-foot snow drifts and a hundred and five inches of snow during that time so twelve miles…”

“Not exactly possible.”

“Not highly likely.” We both answered simultaneously. 

“We could turn around…”

“No, no, it’s just starting to get interesting. From what was reported, a thirty-year ranger said it was the strangest thing he’s ever seen. They verified it was him by a car key.”

“Was it stolen?”

“He’s not you, Jai. May I go on?”

“Please, don’t let me stop you.”

“Apparently, it looked as though Charles…”

“Finally, a name to go with the car keys…”

“Had melted into the spot where he was sitting, right into his jeans sitting on a log.” I caught the motion of her shaking her head out of the corner of my eye but she said nothing else about the details. “Weirder still, his pants hadn’t been disturbed by animals or removed before his death.”

“Can I just make a comment about being removed…”

“No, no you can’t.” I was tempted to just slap her on the thigh, but she just smirked, the corner of her lip going up. “His socks were in his jeans, and there were toe bones in the socks. Who melts into their pants?”

“Dean?” She whispered, which caught my attention and I glared at her. “Oh, come on, some of the ones he wears… you can’t tell me he doesn’t literally paint them on.”

“Have you been staring at his ass?”

“What? Ew, no, you do that enough for both, so don’t hate me if I need to see what’s going on.”

“You’re very strange.”

“Duh.”

“So, the toes ended with a bit of broken tibia.”

“Wait, the tibia is nowhere near the toes.”

“I think they’re referring to the fact that he might have broken his tibia, which is why he was sitting.”

“Still doesn’t make sense, who goes twelve miles with a broken leg?”

“Apparently, Charles.” I watched as she suddenly became lost in thought and decided her silence was the best time to go on, now quoting from the article. “The rest of Charles was mysteriously absent from the site of his demise. A thorough search of the lonesome canyon turned up tiny bone fragments and the crown of his skull about twelve feet away. That was all they ever found of Charles McCullar.”

“Okay, kinda cringy.”

“Very much so,” I scanned over the document a bit more, finding the end close and read once more. “To add more weirdness to this already ghastly scene, Charles’ jeans were unbuttoned and his belt undone.” 

“But…”

“No. NO! Just keep whatever comment you’re about to make to yourself and let me finish.”

“Sounds like he at least got that too.”

I glared at her. “You need to take this seriously.”

“Oh, I’m completely serious. Who sits on a log with their pants undone unless they were finding a happy place somewhere out in the wild. Either that or there was someone or something out there with them and that makes me think demon.”

“You almost always think demon.”

“And I’m almost always right.”

I drew in a deep breath and went back to the screen. “No shirt or coat was ever found, and most perplexing of all the rangers couldn’t find his boots. Rangers say  _ they always find the boots _ !”

“Demon with a foot fetish.”

“Stop! Right now… stop! We’re not going to get anything done if you keep making comments.”

“But you keep giving me a response and that just makes me want to keep going. See, it’s a horrible catch 22.” She grinned this time, wide like a Cheshire cat, and shrugged. “Wait, boots can last for at least a hundred years, depending on what they’re made of, are you saying they never found them?

“Never.”

“Huh.” she seemed perplexed about that but finally shut up.

“There’s at least nine more listed.” 

“Okay, well, we don’t need to go over them all, we get the gist of it. So this is a thing, and there might be some weight behind it. Maybe these kids have found something.”

“Maybe.”

Research carried on over the next several hours and things just got deeper. So much so that the comments I received were more of a question of  _ really _ and  _ you’ve got to be kidding _ if anything at all. This was a fascinating place, and I for one couldn’t wait to get there.

~~~~~

Saint Regis, Montana, nine hours into the trip was about the time that Jai decided the road could go “ _ screw off” _ for all she cared -- her words -- because on top of it down pouring, night had fallen and we were now somewhere in the mountains of the Lolo National Forest. She was used to back roads, which worked for most of her travels, but highway at night wasn’t something she was fond of. 

There was always that possibility of deer jumping out at you and swerving wasn’t on her list of things she liked to do in cars. 

We exited the highway and hooked a right onto route 135, and pulled into the Super 8 that occupied the side of the road. Jai pulled the car into the parking spot and put the Altima in park. She dropped her head against the steering wheel and glanced over at me. That was my cue. I huffed and got out of the car, trying to dodge the rain as I slipped in the building.

With two keys in hand for a double queen room, I slid back into the car and held one out to her. “Around the back, first floor. 146.”

“Fantastic,” she snatched the key and started the car, pulling around the back of the building. 

It took less than our usual amount of time to move our bags to the room, since all we had to do was open the door and hook a right. Jai flopped down face first on the bed, arms spread wide and huffed into the corporate-dictated comforter that covered the bed. Neither one of us were impressed, but you had to take what you could get, and at sixty-two a night, this was the best we were going to find.

“Dinner?” was the first word out of my mouth fifteen minutes later. The world had been quiet for too long and I could feel the antsy-ness in my legs. I wasn’t sure if Jai had fallen asleep or suffocated herself because she hadn’t moved to turn her head, but her arm raised and she gave me a thumb’s up. “Well, let’s go, there’s a diner across the way and they have huckleberry shakes.”

She sighed overdramatically and pushed herself from the bed. Blinking back sleep, she stretched as far as she could go and I held back the comment of her not getting any taller no matter how much she tried. She grabbed the keys from the table, raised a brow at me, and then shrugged. Looked like it was going to be a nonverbal kind of night. 

“Is it still raining?” 

Her response was an angry look, a scowl, and then a quick shrug.

“Well, look out the damn window.” 

She rolled her eyes, slumped her shoulders and turned, pushing the curtain aside for a moment, before she grabbed the door handle and swung it wide, gesturing for me to leave the room. I grinned at her pantomiming, grabbed my purse and headed out the door, hearing the click of the lock behind me.

We stepped into Huck’s Grill, shaking off the rain, and was greeted by a young, pretty waitress with red hair, and that got Jai’s attention. I don’t think I could have cleared my throat any louder to get her moving, but she got the hint and followed the woman to our seats, sliding in quietly. I managed to order drinks for both of us, since I wasn’t sure what was going on with the hunter across from me, but I was determined to find out once the girl was gone.

“What is your problem?” She started to make a face and was ready to shrug when I raised my hand, “enough! Okay,” which got only a frown, “enough. Just tell me what’s bugging you?”

“Nothing more than the usual.” She looked away, typical Jai. “Long day in the car, time enough to think and knowing if I open my mouth and tell you what’s wrong, you’re just going to have something to say about it that’s just gonna piss me off more.”

“At me?”

“At myself.” She slumped back in the seat, waited for the waitress to pour the coffee for her, and finally snatched the menu at the table. 

“You suck, you know.” I grumbled, taking my own menu.

“So says Sam.” 

“Gross, do you mind?”

“Not usually, he doesn’t either.” She deadpanned that one, which didn’t surprise me but I knew she was coming out of her shell. “What are you gonna have?”

“It all sounds really good. Check this out,” I put the menu down and leaned over. “The Duke…”

“Like John Wayne? Dean would be all over this place.”

“Shh, listen, this bold burger packs a punch with lots of crispy, tasty bacon, and horseradish cracked black pepper cream cheese.”

“My nose itches just thinking about it.” She smirked and held out the menu, “you can double down for an extra three dollars.”

“Yep, definitely getting that and sending it to Dean.”

“Look they have a black bean veggie burger for Sam,” and that brought a full smile to her face. “I think I’m doing the pork madness. Nothing like pulled pork, bacon, pickles, and cheese on a bun, sounds like heaven.”

And neither of us even noticed the waitress standing there taking our order. 

“Anything else I can get for you?”

“A huckleberry shake, please.” She nodded and stepped away, but the smile on Jai’s face wasn’t lost on me. “What?”

“Nothing, just you sucking down on something purple brings my mind to places that it shouldn’t.”

“Lots of things bring your mind to places it shouldn’t go.”

“Yeah, it’s just part of my charm.”

“So are you done being a whiny brat?”

“HA! Like that’s ever going to happen. You know I’m an only child, right? It’s in my official contract to be whiny.”

“I’m an only child, what’s your point?”

“See, ‘nuff said.” She grabbed a few sugar packets, shook them and added them to her coffee. “Did you get the info on the newbies?”

“Yeah, studied it over the last hour before we stopped.” The waitress gently set down the fountain glass with the bright purple shake inside before quietly stepping away and I watched the strange way Jai was looking at her, not with want, but with something that mirrored… “Stop!”

“What?” She snapped up, glaring at me.

“She’s not a demon, cut it out.”

“But she’s so quiet.” 

“Maybe she’s just good at her job, and eavesdropping.”

“Yeah, those totally aren’t demon traits.”

“Again, you almost always think there’s demons.”

“And yeah, again, I’m almost always right.”

“Right, back to the Wessons.”

“Hmm,” she raised the mug to her lips. 

“So, we have Christopher and Sarah. Chris is thirty, and Sarah is twenty-six. Their dad is MIA… since,” I pulled the document up on my phone again to make sure I had it right, “2002 when he was last seen heading out on a hunt for… get this…” and she groaned, “Bigfoot.”

“Oh, my God, how much more cliché can you get? Didn’t you say there were two reported deaths of those damn things in the Crater Lake area alone?”

“Didn’t say the Wessons were smart, just said he disappeared hunting one.”

“Maybe he got eaten by it,” she shrugged, not bothering to look up from the colorful menu in front of her. “You know that whole “studies have shown” thing doesn’t really specify if they’re carnivores. In all likelihood, they decided that Mr. Wesson went really good with Mr. Smith and had a barbecue.”

“I don’t think I could sigh loud enough to cover how bad that was.”

“Hey, thanks.”

The quiet waitress was back, this time with food and while Jai had taken to the notion that she might be a demon, she didn’t say anything as she accepted the plate. I smiled and whispered a thank you before she grinned again and was gone before we knew it. 

Now this was a burger! 

I snapped a picture of it for good measure and sent it along to Dean while Jai did what I thought she might and worked on her  _ food porn _ post for Instagram, knowing there were eyes on her hidden profile. 

There was quiet at the table while we filled our bellies, but as soon as the food started to dwindle, her attention span also withered away and soon she was fidgeting in her seat, destroying the only clean napkin left as she took it apart piece by piece.

“Ask. I can answer questions while I’m eating,” I grumbled as I picked at the burger. “I’m good at multitasking.”

It didn’t take long for the words to leave her mouth, “you think Bobby sent him on that hunt?”

“Why would Bobby do that?”

“Do’no, was just thinking about it.”

“You think too much.”

“Yeah, probably.” She went quiet again, surveyed the place and sighed, “think one of them is his kid?”

“Nosy, aren’t you?”

“A little,” but this pause wasn’t nearly as long. She shifted forward in her chair, “so this dude goes off to hunt a Bigfoot, leaving behind two kids and a wife, and suddenly Bobby’s her connection, her “friend?” I don’t even wanna know how that happens, but how exactly does that happen?”

I put down the burger, wiped my hands with the napkin, and narrowed my eyes at her. “Do you want my notes?”

“Yeah, please.” And that was all it took. I slid the phone over and watched as she leaned in, scrolled through the online documents and sat contently long enough so I could finish my food. As soon as I pushed the plate away though… “So…”

I raised a finger and shook it, along with my head. “Dessert first.”

“Fine.” Her arm lay across the back of the bench, tapping on the vinyl as her legs started to shake under the table. 

She must have been bored or really good at her job, because the waitress was there almost as soon as Jai started tapping away. “Can I get you anything else?”

“Two slices of pie, please.” I asked cordially, ignoring the way Jai’s lips moved, a little stunned that I had ordered for her as well. “No ice cream.”

“Sure thing,” and off she went.

“What if I didn’t want pie?” She huffed out after a few quiet minutes.

“One, you’re like Dean, you never turn down pie, and two; if you don’t eat it, I will. More for me.” She seemed to grow quiet at that, mulling over this response before she let a long exhale escape and she cleared her throat, looking at me.

“Now?”

“Now, yes.”

“So…” she straightened in the seat, “going over this whole manifest, it doesn’t give me anything to work with.”

“It’s their whole lives in six pages.”

“Yeah, but me… anything  _ I _ can work with.”

“Your freaky instincts are not in question here, Jai. They asked for help, we’re going to help them.”

“Yeah, I got that part, but what I need is a little more than this,” she pushed the phone towards me. “Maybe we should call them.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now.”

“Like now, now?”

“No… three minutes ago - now, when we started this whole conversation. Yes, now.”

“No.”

“What do you mean no?”

“No, we’ll call them tomorrow. We have to check in anyway, figure out where to meet when we get in the area, that whole thing.”

“Hmm,” she sat back, thought it over and nodded. “Okay.”

“That’s it?”

“You want an argument?”

“No, I just want you to be sure.”

“I’m sure.” She shifted again as the pie was set down in front of her, gave the waitress a friendly-ish grin, and pulled it closer, before the girl disappeared.

“I thought you didn’t want pie.”

“I asked  _ what _ if I didn’t want it, not that I  _ didn’t  _ want it.” She laughed, but I knew it was because she was skirting the edge of being overtired and edgy. “Weapons check after this?”

“You sure you can handle it?”

“Two more cups of coffee and I’ll be right as rain.” she took a bite of the pie. “Hmm, this is really good.”

~~~~~

Checking over the weapons at the hotel was quiet, something that I hoped for with Jai being nearly off the rails with anxiety and the need to let off steam, but she was always meticulous with her weapons. 

The guns had been taken apart and cleaned, blades were sharpened and put away, and she was quiet, which was definitely a bonus since I was still getting information on Crater Lake, but it looked as if we were well stocked for ammo and other necessities until we got closer to our location. 

We did the same routine in reverse from the night before. Showers, then bed, flipping through the channels and then darkness, but nothing ever stayed dark for very long. 

At least, not in a hunter’s mind.

It started out as a sunny memory, something that every child should remember, sitting out on the swingset, handsewn doll in hand, barely swaying as I hummed a tune, one that I remember but not clear enough to place. There was a dog running through the yard, a golden retriever mix of some sort, happy and carefree, until he wasn’t.

He stood on the back steps, barking feverishly at the back screen door. It’s a panicked bark, one that grew widely in volume and need. He started pacing before ramming into the screen as if being locked out wasn’t an option anymore.

I could hear myself yelling to him, telling him to stop, yelling for my mother, but there was nothing except his incessant barking. I moved towards him, but I don’t remember getting off the swing just as he burst through the screen, running into the house. The sound of the barking grew, this time followed by angry growls. 

I didn’t even bother opening the door, I just climbed through the screen and rushed into the kitchen. 

As soon as I crossed the threshold, the entire house fell silent. Holding the doll tight, I stepped around the island in the kitchen, eyes on the figure of my mother standing at the kitchen sink, but what drew me even further in was the dog, the one that was so set on getting to her that he harmed himself in the process, was now sitting docile, almost statue-like at her feet. 

His eyes scanned the room and stopped, locked on me, but I dragged my gaze away from him at the red lines that ran down the sink, and over the edge of the counters, dripping loudly onto the tile below. A large puddle spread beneath her feet, around the paws of the dog, and I clutched the doll tighter.

“Mommy?” I whispered, could hear myself whimpering, but distinctly heard that word. She started to hum, a song that I still couldn’t place, and slowly turned her head to look at me. “Mommy?”

The dog growled, bared its teeth when I stepped to close. She continued to hum, the noise growing louder, so much so that I had to block my ears. It grew in pitch, a high-pitched sound that sang along every nerve in my body. 

She turned, but I couldn’t see her face, it was blank, nothing… featureless, but the blood that ran down her arms was there, bright crimson against what looked like a black and white background. 

It was the moment she reached out, knife in hand, that I screamed. Screamed as loud as I could and suddenly felt those hands around my arms. 

“Hey!” Jai’s voice snapped into existence, loud enough to drown out the screams, the hum, and I forced my eyes open to stare at her bright blue ones. The light on the table beside me gave her a strange pale glow. “There you are. What’s happening, chicky?”

“Jai?” I shuffled back from her, uncertain of where I was, but it all came rushing back. “What’s going on?”

“Well, you were screaming,” she sat back on the bed, the fear being etched out by the need to be herself again, “like a little girl, you know… Dean-ish and all that, but,” she smacked her lips, “you weren’t waking up, and that worries me.”

“Well,” I pushed her away gently, “I’m awake now.”

“Yeah, me too, unfortunately.” She scrubbed a hand down her face. “You good?”

“Peachy.” I dropped back on the pillow, covered in sweat and cringed.

“Good,” she patted my leg, “take a shower, I’m going back to bed for another few hours.”

“What time is it?” I watched her fall into the sheets again, snuggle up into the blanket, and reach for the light.

“Ass o’clock, go to bed!” And the room was pitched into darkness.


	2. Jai

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: These chapters are really long!

**Jai**

I took a deep breath in, wanting nothing but to let my eyes stay closed a little while longer, to enjoy the silence of the room -- if Gwen’s breathing, the ticking of the strange old analog clock on the wall, and the popping of the heater trying to keep up with the influx of cold overnight in the mountains was considered silence. It was all natural to me, familiar… comforting. I just wanted to stay there in peace for just a moment…

The cell on the nightstand table to my right vibrated three times in quick succession, which definitely now had my eyes open. It was still dark in the room except for the small sliver of light that indicated the phone had now lit up, even on its face, it was too bright.

I reached over, pushing up on my elbow, checked if the person under the bundled up blankets had moved or indicated she had even woken up to the noise and saw nothing, and reached for the phone. 

Thank the Gods it was a text message, I don’t think I could deal with calls before coffee, but it was Sam and that was a relief. I lay back in the pillow and opened it, turning down the brightness so not to blind myself and swiped it open.

**Sam:** _ Everything going ok?  _

I glanced over at the bed once more thinking of the way she screamed not more than three hours before and sighed. Maybe? Maybe she was okay?

But I texted back a thumbs up emoji because it was way too early for this whole thinking thing.

**Sam:** _ No coffee yet? _

I smiled at that, but then remembered he was an hour ahead of me.  _ “Not even out of bed yet, we’re on PT.” _

**Sam:** _ Oh, shit, sorry. Did I wake you? _

_ “I was waking up.” _

**Sam:** _ Text when you wake up more. I love you. _

Wait… What?

I sat up suddenly, looked down at the phone in horror, and shook. Did he… Was that… Really?

**Sam:** _ Oh! Oh, shit! Oh, Christ, I’m sorry, that didn’t mean to…  _

**Sam:** _ Jai? _

**Sam:** _ Jai. _

Shaking my head, clearing out the absolute shock of it, I finally found my fingers.  _ “I’m okay. It’s okay, Sam. I… You… ya’ know.” _

And that was as close as he was going to get to that. Holy  _ fuck _ !

**Sam:** _ I know. And thank you for not freaking out. _

Who was he kidding? I was sitting here having a mild panic attack. Not freaking out! Yeah, right. So, I sent him a heart, put the phone down on the bed, and bolted for the bathroom, not sure if I was about to throw up or have my heart burst out of my chest.

Showers usually helped calm the mind, concentrating on the task of washing and nothing else, but when I stepped out today, it hit me all again. I had almost lost Gwen, she had suffered an injury that was usually a me and me alone thing, she was having nightmares, and Sam had sprung the biggest three worded surprise I would have never in a million years guessed was coming. 

It was way too early for this. 

Even earlier since Gwen was sitting up in bed, blankets pulled to her waist, computer open, looking way too awake for what time it happened to be. She glanced up, gave me a frown, and shook her head.

“Your phone was going off.” Her voice was low, grouchy, but it was still her usual hour of sleep so being this way wasn’t a surprise. It did, however, give me the opportunity to make my coffee. I nodded, grabbed the pot, and filled it before I answered.

“Sam texted this morning, forgot that he was in Mississippi apparently.”

“Time difference?”

“Yeah, easily taken care of though. I told him we’d talk when we were up and part of the living world.” I opened the small, sealed bag of already ground coffee and slipped the premade filter into the machine, letting it do its work. “Why are you awake?”

“Your phone was going off.” 

I stopped, looking at her oddly. “Like ringing or just a text?”

“How is your phone set up?”

I didn’t bother answering, just moved to it and snatched it up off the table. Sure enough, there was a phone call… several actually from one Christian Cambell.

“Hmm.” No voicemails. “It’s C.C.” 

“What’s he want?”

“Do’no, didn’t leave a message.”

“Might as well call him back.” 

I sent out a text instead, and what I got back was prompt and to the point. “He’s in Dallas, wondered if we were in the area.”

“He  _ likes _ you!” Gwen teased -- too early for teasing -- and I rolled my eyes.

“No thanks, one-half of a Campbell is enough for me.” I texted back a big  _ nope _ and dropped the phone at the sound of the percolator finishing. 

It was uneventful for about an hour, spent with coffee, lore, and waiting for the sun to rise before we hit the road, and when it did, it wasn’t even our regular flurry of motion, it was just moving. We packed our bags, cleaned up the room, and were out the door before it broke the horizon.

With the tank refilled, the coffee hot, and a few snacks for the road, we hopped I-90 and headed west for another ten hours on the road. This time it wasn't filled with the oddities of Crater Lake but easy banter and music. 

Until nineish, that’s when the call came through.

It rang twice on my phone, which seemed to be linked to the car, and scared the hell out of both of us. Hitting the accept button took all of about three seconds.

“Good morning, Winchesters,” I grinned, getting an annoyed look from Gwen.

The voice on the other end seemed anything but happy.

_ “Where are you?” _ Dean… he had such a pleasant voice so early in the morning.

“Coeur d’Alene,” I replied with my best accent, though which one I wasn’t sure, it was a mix of French, Russian, and bullshit, but I finished it off with cowboy, “that’s in Montana.”

“Longest state in the world.” Gwen groaned and it looked like we had a new winner. Ohio might actually be pushed from its top seat of never ending state.

_ “Okay, should I really go on with this line of questioning?” _ Dean could be so infuriating.

“Look, Dean,” I sighed, “we know you’re a hardass but it’s too early in the morning and we haven’t had breakfast, so no, there’s no need for questioning. Bobby’s sending us out to Oregon…”

_ “What’s in Oregon? That state’s insane, you know!”  _

And I turned my head, grinning at Gwen like I had won a million bucks.

“Quiet,” she growled at me, which did nothing but make me smile wider. “There’s a few hunters out there that need our help.”

_ “There’s a million other hunters that could do that job,” _ Dean continued to argue.

_ “Dean,” _ Sam’s voice nearly laughed over the line, and suddenly my heart was pounding in my chest, and my mind raced, inwardly praying that he wouldn’t say those words out loud.  _ “Morning. What Dean is trying to get at is do you need help?” _

“Morning,” Gwen sighed, “and no.”

“Heya, Sammy,” I smiled, despite myself.

_ “Hey,” _ that one word was full of emotion, and you know how you can tell when someone’s smiling on the line. Yeah, that’s what he was doing right now. _ “So, what’s going on up in Oregon?” _

“Some hikers are missing at Crater Lake.” Gwen just seemed so uninterested, even though I knew she was biting at the bit to get there and start exploring. Maybe it was her nightmare.

_ “That’s it? That’s what you’re going up there for?” _

“Down, technically,” I mumbled, not wanting to get the infuriating man more… infuriated, but then again… “You should look this place up, there’s so much lore behind it, we might be there a while.”

_ “No,” _ he snapped out _ , “No, you need to  _ not _ be there longer than necessary.” _

I hit the mute button and glanced at Gwen. “What’s his problem?”

“Wrong side of the coffee cup?” She didn’t have any more of a clue than I did. “Maybe it really is just the state.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

_ “Are you even listening to me?” _ He snapped over the line. I tapped the button again and sighed.  _ “You muted me, didn’t you?” _

“You’re yelling, Dean,” Gwen whispered, calm, collected, and he audibly relaxed, you could hear it. “So, what we know is that we need to get out there and check things over. If it’s been going on for as long as the paper trail says, we’re not going to be able to do much but give them some closure.”

_ “Right,” _ Dean sighed, and I smirked. I loved that she could put him in his place.  _ “So, we’re headed home.” _

“Took care of that ghost already?” I really had no doubt but that meant we missed them by just over a day.

_ “It wasn’t all that hard,” _ Sam spoke up, and of course, he wouldn’t think so, he was Sam after all.

“Did you leave anything for the tourists to get excited over?” I teased but flipped on the blinker to pass a slow as hell truck that was in my way.

_ “A little,” _ and that was the end of that. _ “Want us to come up?” _

“No, I think we can handle a lake monster and a few flying aliens.”

_ “This sounds like a dream job for you,” _ Dean quipped,  _ “finally able to head back up to the mothership. A solid lead home.” _

“Screw off, Deanie,” I grinned and concentrated on moving around the Mack that was now beside me. “Besides, if they come for me, they come for you too.”

_ “Yeah, yeah,”  _ he snorted and that was a weird answer from him.  _ “So who are you meeting?” _

“The Wessons,” and yes, I did say it with a bit of humor in my voice.

_ “You’re kidding right?” _ Dean laughed.

“Nope, completely serious.”

_ “Wait, Chris and Sarah Wesson?” _ Sam questioned, and of course, he would know them. _ “Dean, those are Marsha’s kids.” _

_ “Bobby’s friend Marsha?” _ And the conversation went on between them, which I tuned out, until -- _ “Jai, you remember Marsha?” _

“No, I don’t remember any Stewarts coming to the house, why?”

_ “No,” _ he laughed,  _ “she was a hunter back in 2006 that came to Bobby for help on some sort of mutant lizard case. She stayed for a few days, and if I remember right, you weren’t exactly happy with it.” _

“I don’t remember being happy with any chick that stayed at Bobby’s but I would think I would remember a _Return_ _of_ _the Swamp Thing_ deal.” Really, a mutant lizard? Where the hell was I in 2006? “Anyway, you know these guys?”

_ “Yeah, good kids, good hunters. Chris is pretty smart, Sarah, kinda wild.” _ Dean answered that one and, oh, I knew that tone.

“Little young for you, don’t you think?” Gwen grinned even as she tried to make her words have a little bit of bite in them.

_ “It wasn’t like that,” _ he defended and I put a hand over my mouth to stifle the laugh. She definitely got him.  _ “Listen, you’ll be okay with them, that’s all I meant.” _

“Mmhhmm.” I hummed out and Gwen giggled. Backpedaling was definitely a  _ Dean _ thing to do.

_ “Okay,” _ Sam cleared his throat.  _ “Get some breakfast, let us know when you get there, and where you’re staying. Dean looks like he’s about to burst.” _ Which was code for Sam had to stop and use the bathroom. _ “Deal?” _

“Deal,” I nodded and Gwen gave a quick roll of her head in what might have been taken as agreement.

He gave a breathless,  _ “bye,” _ and the line went dead.

“Well, that wasn’t weird at all.” She spoke up after a few moments of silence.

“Mutant lizard?” I raised a brow at her and watched as she shrugged. “I don’t remember anything about a mutant lizard.”

“Maybe it’s code.”

I blinked at her a few times, feeling my stomach turn as I shook and groaned, “so gross.”

~~~~~

Michael Jay’s Restaurant and Bar was the perfect place to stop for a brunch type of meal another two hours down the road, but things were quiet between us. We were six hours out, there wasn’t much more to go over. Whatever lore we needed to find had been found, whatever information we needed on the Wessons was looked up and gone through, and we had filled the hours with music and small talk, so as we sat in the place waiting on food, we were both relaxing. 

Sometimes it was good just to pull over and take the time out of the car.

“You’re thinking,” she whispered over the top of her mug, and this had me taking my gaze from the parking lot to focus on her. 

“Yeah, probably too much,” I sighed, shifting in the seat to wrap my hands around the warmth of the coffee mug. “You okay? From last night, I mean?”

“Took you long enough to ask,” she slouched her shoulders, looked tired and a bit defeated but shrugged. “It was just a weird nightmare.”

“Those happen,” I smiled, watched the way my creamer swirled in my cup, and shook my head, “never heard you screaming before though, kinda threw me, and to be honest, it was scary as hell.”

“I agree,” she suddenly sat back, eyes locked on me, burrowing in so much they were almost tangible. “Are they like that with you?”

“Used to be.” No time to let this be something I held back. “Before we started doing this more often, they used to have me up all hours trying to shake the feeling. I couldn’t go back to sleep after one, but would sit there. Drinking wasn’t an option, not with the kind of things I saw.”

“I remember,” she gave a curt nod and that was the end of that one. Neither of us wanted to talk about what happened the last time I tried to drink myself back to sleep. “It’ll go away, probably a side effect of the head trauma, and Gabe’s fucking around up there.”

“Maybe he did try to add a little more snark and it backfired.” 

She grinned at that, “maybe.”

The food arrived, the subject was dropped and things went about as normal as they could between the two of us. Normal in the sense that nothing in our lives was categorized under that heading and before we knew it pie was eaten, tank was filled, and we were back on the road, heading south on I-395.

It was just after we passed through Pasco, about five-ish hours out that I glanced over at her. “You ready to do this?”

“Have first contact?” She grimaced at the whole thought. “You know me and phone calls. You should do the honor.”

“Pfft, the honor would be telling these kids to haul ass home and keep the belief that Bigfoot ate their friend, but whatever.” I let her punch in the number in my phone and listened to it ring. 

The voice that answered when it connected wasn’t what I expected. It was deep, gruff, and kinda familiar in the way that he was definitely a hunter. _ “Ello!” _

“Hey, this is Lancing,” and I cringed at that, wondering if he would even recognize the name, “I’m looking for Chris Wesson.”

_ “Found him,” _ and those words had a different tone, almost like relief.

“Cool, I’m here with Gwen Bancroft, and we’re about five or so hours out. We figured we’d let you come up with a place to meet.” 

_ “Ah, yeah,” _ he seemed a little taken aback by that and cleared his throat,  _ “yeah, hang on.”  _ There was a muffled shout of a name and then the hand moved from the phone.  _ “Sarah!” _ The same name again. In the background a younger woman replied, there was just the pitch of her voice that gave away her age. _ “Where? No, they want a meet up point.” _ He sounded put out as he waited for an answer.  _ “Okay… YES! It’s fine.”  _ The way the words came in and out made it so I could only smile at the obvious annoyance at his sibling, and Gwen held in a chuckle.  _ “Lancing, right?” _

“Jai if you want.”

_ “Kay, so there’s a place in Chiloquin called M&J. Meet us there. Shoot a text when you’re about thirty out.” _

“Sounds like a plan.” I debated on going any further with it but couldn’t help myself. “Bring anything you can on the case.”

_ “Trust me, there isn’t anything I’m gonna forget,” _ and with that, the line went dead.

“Well, he sounds pleasant.” I shrugged and Gwen burst out in loud laughter, like she had had just about enough of holding it in. “Hot though.”

“No,” she shook her head, “I know you, and I know it’s been a few months but hands off.”

“Didn’t say I was going to touch him, just said he was hot… sounding.” I shook my head, I had seen pictures of the guy, he was hot in other ways, but she was right, not touching. “Anyway, wanna find out more about this M&J place, figure out the food situation.”

“Sure, if it gets you by.” 

I rolled my eyes at her. Figures she’s gonna be a pain in my ass for the next five hours, might as well use the time wisely.

~~~~~

The little one-story building we pulled up across the street from was very unassuming, but as the two of us got out and stretched, you could tell there was something different here. I glanced around the area, watched her do that same, and shook my head.

“Not at all a mecca for weird shit.” I sighed as she rounded the front of the car and met me at the fender. “You feel that?”

“No, no one else can feel your weird demon shit, but I agree that there’s something… off.” 

We crossed the street, and dipped inside. Small tables took up as much room as possible in the tiny space, but the claustrophobic feeling wasn’t there, it’s like the world was shut out the moment the doors closed. At a table closest to the counter, a young man, early thirties, looked up from his coffee. 

His brown eyes matched his black hair, and the light tan color of his skin, but the way his pink lips turned down into a frown had me wondering if we weren’t exactly what he expected. He reached out, tapped the arm of the woman with her back to us, long black hair matching her brother’s and she looked up, turning at the gesture he gave her, and I smirked, not unfriendly, but you could almost feel their apprehension at our arrival.

He slowly got to his feet as Gwen and I moved closer, until he slid into the one closest to the wall, opening the one beside him up for me to slip into. The girl did the same, eyes wide at Gwen who was now sitting beside her.

“You made good time.” Chris started it off, and I only nodded, turning in his direction. “Thanks for coming.”

“No problem,” and I held back every sarcastic remark that flooded my head, “I’m Jai,” turning to Gwen, I gave her a pointed nod. “That’s Gwen, and Bobby said you two were having some issues.”

“Issues? This whole place has issues,” Sarah snarked and I liked her already. “You’ve looked up the lore, I’m assuming? Crater Lake has a pretty high missing persons rate.”

“Well, your lake is apparently bottomless, so there’s that,” I grinned at her and watched all the apprehension fall away as she leaned on the table, arms crossed and narrowed her eyes at me. “Oh no, not me, I'm not the researcher. That would be her.” I pointed at Gwen, “I’m just the driver.”

“You sound like Chris,” she grinned and extended a hand. “Sarah Wesson.” I shook said hand gently and nodded. “He says he’s just the driver all the time, but that’s mostly because he thinks he can drive better than me.”

“I can,” he deadpanned, sitting back in his seat with a huff, but his eyes went from me to Gwen and back. “So, you know Singer? How?”

“Grew up with him,” I shrugged, glancing around the place. I definitely could use some coffee, or food. 

Gwen’s snort brought my attention back to the table. “He thinks it’s funny to send hunters my way for help,” Gwen admitted, though I knew she sometimes liked the challenge of getting them out of trouble. “Tell us about your friend.”

“Straight to the point then,” Chris nodded.

“But first,” I raised a hand, pointed at his cup and got up. “Coffee.”

I wasn’t able to hold interest in the conversation going on behind me for very long once they were out of sight, but I certainly needed that coffee. Ten hours on the road, a few extra for food, and it was nearly eight already. I grabbed a bottled Coke from the fridge and handed it to Gwen as I sat down.

“Dylan Henry is  _ our _ researcher,” Chris started off, and I saw Sarah slump back in her seat, sadness in her eyes as she stared at her own mug. “He and his boy DJ went camping up at the Crater about a week ago, didn’t come home.”

“You would think anyone who knew anything about this would stay way away from places that have the past this place does,” Gwen sighed. She already wasn’t a fan. I held up my finger, not saying a word and that got her to clear her throat. “Continue.”

“No, you’re right, Dyl should have known better, he did know better,” Chris placed his booted foot on the stretcher below my seat, turning so he was facing all of us and continued. “It was an anniversary thing, something he did every year and came out of without a scratch, so none of us thought anything of him camping just off the East Rim Drive.”

Gwen coughed on the gulp of soda she had just taken and at least had the decency to look apologetic but I could almost see the comments running through her mind. 

“If anything Dylan knew the woods up there more than most, having grown up with a ranger for a father, and a grandfather.” Chris paused to give Gwen a little knowing smile as she finally caught her breath. “Don’t hold it in, we’ve all heard the comments from just about everyone passing through, so, if you need to let them out…”

“No,” she sucked in a breath, “I’m good.”

I couldn’t help the snort that escaped me though before I grinned at the man. “Just keep going.”

“Right,” he chuckled, and Sarah crossed her arms, sinking lower into the chair. “Like I said, he knew those woods better than anyone so when Jane called the next day, told us that they had missed check-in, that was all it took to get us out there.”

“And you found nothing?” I assumed.

“Nope, not even a raccoon having scratched at a tree.” I could see that meant something to them but the reference was lost on me. He gave a slight roll of his eyes. “Nothing was touched. There wasn’t a print that didn’t belong to the two of them, and there were no signs of a struggle. Everything was where it was put, as if they set up camp and then left.”

“Huh,” I glanced at Gwen, who had that look in her eyes, the one that told me that maybe this was something to look into after all. “G?”

“He was a researcher, but was he hands-on?”

“No, Dylan came from a huge college background in anthropology and mythology but besides his dad going missing back in 83’, there was no reason for him to get into our side of hunting. He wanted to keep his family safe too.”

“We know how that goes.” I raised the mug up and took a sip of the still hot coffee before I brought anything else up, and I was letting Gwen process. “He’s been missing a week, anyone else besides the two of you look for him?”

“Yeah, Park Services, local police, Fish and Wildlife were out once. Even brought in Search and Rescue, said that after this long it was a recovery mission not a rescue anymore, which is why we called Bobby,” Sarah added, sitting up quickly in the chair. “Look, can you help or not?”

“Sarah!” Chris scolded, but I just smiled and nodded.

“We’ll help.”

“You said the East Rim Drive. Where is that located in the park?” She pulled out her tablet from the messenger bag over her shoulder and loaded up the map of the park. Chris leaned over the table to see it better and I sat back to take in our surroundings. There was a lot of quiet mumbling as I got lost in the hustle the small café had going despite the late hour and before I knew it, someone was calling my name. “Lancing!”

“Hmm?” I blinked, realized I had been reclining in my chair, and looked at the hazy face of Gwen. “Sorry, long night, longer drive. What’s the plan?”

“They said that a few people had seen them taking pictures of the lake not far off the drive,” she glared at me with worry and frustration. “They agreed to meet us about nine to get in the gate and check out the site.”

“Sounds good.” All I could do was agree, there wasn’t much else we could do at that time of night. 

“Look,” Chris sighed, “you can stay in town or you can head up to Fort Klamath, they have a small motel and campground up there called Jo’s. I know the owner. His wife is an ornery old coot, but she’s manageable. It will be an easy place to grab breakfast in the morning too.”

“How about you? You close to the park?” 

Chris stood, smiling down at me as he grabbed his hat, and I didn’t even notice the black Stetson on the table the whole time.

“Nah, we’re back the other way, towards Kirk. Don’t worry, we know where we’re going.” His eyes were locked on mine as he winked. I pushed up from the table, nodded at him when Sarah yawned and slipped on her jacket. Gwen was still sitting, looking over the map, and I knew she was in a world all her own now. “We’ll meet you at the park headquarters to grab passes, and take you around the drive.”

“Appreciate it,” I smiled at him, getting one back as he looked down at Gwen. “Don’t mind her, with our luck, she’ll have this solved before tea tomorrow morning.”

“We can hope.” Chris nodded at me, then slowly walked away, his boots tapping on the linoleum floor. Sarah stood, smirked in my direction and disappeared after them. 

“Don’t even think of it.” Gwen grumbled, not even looking up. Even without seeing the look on my face, I was caught. I shook my head, patted her on the shoulder, as I turned and sat back down just to look at her. She glanced up, quick enough to scold. “You don’t need another one.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” I grinned like a Cheshire cat.

“Sure.”

“Come on, I’m about to tank, let’s go get a place to sleep.” Standing suddenly, I moved past her, hearing the chair scrap behind me, and I knew right where she was. 

The night was chilly as we stepped over the threshold of the small building, and there was just something in the atmosphere that had me stopping on the sidewalk.

“You okay?” She whispered as she zipped her hoodie.

“Can’t shake a weird feeling, that’s all.” I dug the keys from my pocket and headed out across the quiet street to the car, slipping in to the warmth that filled it. I really should start stealing more of ones with automatic starts, I could get used to this.

~~~~~ 

Jo’s Motel and Campground was a sight to see to say the least. There were at least five rooms, each with its own small carport, front and back door, and -- as I stood in the doorway looking -- complete with gaudy bedspreads and a simple wood stove. All-in-all, it was quaint and Chris had made good on his promise.

We were greeted with a scowl by the old man, told pointedly that this was private property and that there was no one allowed on it that didn’t have a room, and the look of poor horror on Gwen’s face when the whole no internet or wifi thing was mentioned lasted only long enough to get out the door before I heard a mumbled “ _ thank the Gods for hotspots,” _ and that was the end of that. 

So… here we stood, sharing a queen, not that it was an issue; we had done it plenty of times, but the motel didn’t offer double rooms. Dean would have had a field day with this, as it was, I didn’t really care, I just needed sleep.

Dropping the bags by the door, I scooted through the room to check out the small bathroom with a standing shower and took a breath. No claw-foot tub, which was disappointing but I hadn’t really found a good one since Alabama… I think, and that was only because it was one of Bobby’s safe houses…. Excuse me, Bobby’s mansions. Either way, to shower off the grit and grime of ten hours on the road and another two listening to the Wessons talk would be a great comfort.

After cleaning ourselves, and flopping down on the bed, the whole exhaustion seemed to melt away and I found myself staring at the ceiling, brain going a mile a minute as I barreled through all the knowledge that I had gotten from not only the lore, but the Wessons as well.

Something wasn’t adding up. 

“I can see the smoke coming out of your ears,” Gwen deadpanned as she moved from the bathroom to the side of the bed, sitting down with her back to me. “More disgustingly, I can smell it, so might as well spit it out.”

It took me a moment to gather the words into thoughts that would make sense leaving my mouth before I spoke. “Why would a researcher in our line of work go camping in a place he knew was pretty well haunted? Why would he follow anything into the woods when he knew that it was Klamath land, and why the hell would he bring his kid?”

“Don’t talk about the kid,” she grumbled, flipped the blankets aside and slipped under them. “I’m still not sure if we should just scrap the case on that whole piece of the puzzle alone.”

“Come on, even you aren’t that mean,” I smirked, sliding one of the pillows out from under my head to hand to her. She snatched it away, flipped down on her side with her back to me and cuddled into it. “No, it’s just… something, I guess.”

“That explains so much.” There was a huff in her voice as I reached up and turned off the light. Bobby had been informed of our arrival and place of rest, the boys were up-to-date on everything going on, but there was still something that kept my eyes from closing. “Go to sleep, Jai.”

“Right,” I sighed, but continued to stare at the ceiling for another hour, not moving, just staring.

Gwen had fallen into a light sleep, I could tell by her breathing, but just like the night before, she started making strange pained noises, scared little whimpers that had me wondering just what was going on in her head, but the moment she bolted up in bed, I knew she was having nightmares.

With a shuddered sigh, she glanced over at me in the dark, having just enough light from the streetlamp outside to notice me looking and she flopped back on the bed.

“Should we be calling Cas to help you sleep?” 

Her groan was as good of an answer as her words but she still scowled out a “no,” before curling up, facing me this time. “They’re just nightmares.”

“Sure, but may I point out the fact that you don’t dream?” I felt her shift closer. “There has only been one time that you had, and that one seemed to be prophetic, so what should I do with you having nightmares?”

“How about drop it?” And while this wasn’t something I would usually use to explain the sound, it really was as if she  _ grrr-ed _ it out, if that made any sense. 

I scoffed, rolled towards her, and watched her eyes slowly close, drifting back into that sleep. It was only then that I could feel my world fading. With a deep breath, I let the darkness in, and fell into nothingness.

~~~~~

Six a.m. came quickly, and the two of us were up and moving. Gwen sat at the small table in the room, books and laptops -- two this time -- open and exploring the crater and the park with all the maps. 

She had also done some sort of algorithm the day before in the car that gave us the locations of all the missing people over the last hundred years and to say there was something going on in both the northeast corner of the park and the southwest would be an understatement.

I leaned over her shoulder, ready to go and stared at the map. “That’s a straight line, there’s no deviation from it at all.”

“Nope, none whatsoever.” She sighed, “the issue is… there’s nothing in the middle to give us a center point except the crater itself.”

“Hmm,” I agreed, standing to shift to the bed, pulling on my boots. 

“When are we meeting them again?”

“Chris said nine,” I mumbled, reaching over the bed to grab my phone and stuffed it in my pocket. “Got about two, two and a half hours to kill. Breakfast?”

“Depends, we’re smack dab in the middle of two places to eat. We could go north to Annie’s which is actually a restaurant and gift shop…”

“Oh, goodie, souvenirs,” I grinned, and while I was trying to sound sarcastic, I actually like the little, useless things we picked up along the way. 

“Or, back towards Chiloquin to a place called The Potbelly Café.” 

I dropped down onto the bed, debating my choices and shrugged. “That’s like, what… about forty minutes back this way after eating?”

“About that.” She slipped her tablet into her messenger bag as I grabbed the keys and we headed towards the door. I knew that everything she had looked up was synced to the smaller device so we weren’t leaving anything important in the room, which made me feel more at ease when I finally got in and started the drive, heading back down to where we met the Wessons the night before. “So, seventeen minutes on this road and apparently, it's in the same building as the post office.”

“Gotta love small towns, they have the best shit hidden in plain sight.” I grinned at her as Gwen raised a brow. 

She hated small towns, honestly. Growing up in the city had given her access to everything in walking distance. The fact that you could barely get carry-out pizza delivered in most of the places I stayed just drove her insane. And GrubHub just wasn’t a thing.

The small diner was set in a one-story building and the interior was bright and happy, which was good because I was definitely in need of coffee, and that usually put me in too much of a sour mood to be happy. The two women that manned the counter were pleasant enough and the food came quickly. The coffee… man, the coffee was out of this world.

Gwen’s off-kilter mood was lifted by two slices of the most amazing French Toast I had ever seen, and a whole order of biscuits and gravy. 

It was the one thing that Jeeves couldn’t do, even with his super powers of being able to deal with us… he just couldn’t get the gravy right, and having it shipped in was just wrong. Gwen ordered it almost every time it was available, this trip was no different.

It was topped off with a cocoa, and a scowl as she looked up at me from drowning the toast in her syrup, to politely explain, “nightmares burn calories.”

“No argument here,” I laughed, raising my hands as if to surrender. 

She wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know, but at least she didn’t wake up sweating again, not that I could remember anyway. The plate of two eggs, bacon, biscuits, and grits in front of me was just calling my name because it seemed my stomach worked harder in higher elevations. It was the coffee that couldn’t seem to keep up, since it kept getting refilled without me actually seeing them walk by the table.

“Pass me the sugar?” I kept my voice low as she dug in, but slid the container over. I poured two packets in before she glanced up at me.

“What?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged, because I guess I just had that  _ look _ , and gazed out the window at the people passing by. “This whole thing doesn’t feel weird to you?”

“We’re in Buttfuck, Oregon, where the best French toast I’ve ever had probably comes off the conveyor belt next door in the post office, and you think this doesn’t feel weird?”

Well, she was in an interesting mood.

“The conveyor belt? Really?” I grinned, picked up the fork and finally started eating, but I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face. 

The image of toast on a belt… so weird. It was quiet for a while as we ate, a long while, and I had hoped to keep it up, just enjoy the silence but my body had other plans, like fidgety, uncontrolled tapping, shaky leg plans. 

And she finally looked up. “I thought we really had a good thing going here.”

“Yeah, well, I lasted longer than usual, so there’s that.”

“I’m wondering if you should really see a doctor.”

“Sure, because my hunter’s health insurance covers psychological issues.” I groaned, finishing the last piece of bread. “I don’t need drugs.”

“You need something. You can’t sit still for shit, Jai, something is going on.”

“Just anxiety.”

“When was the last time you didn’t feel anxious.” Oh, and here came that minor in psychology that she was still working on. Great, at least she had something to do. 

“I don’t know, seven months ago?”

“Really? That’s awful specific.”

“You asked.” I snipped and glanced down at my mug. Was this place haunted or something? The Ghost of Helpful Hannah, refilling my coffee? I glanced around, not seeing anyone walking the floor. “What the actual hell?”

“She walked by while you were looking out the window.” Gwen grinned and as much as I wanted to be mad about it, it was good to see her smiling. “Just now, you got lost in thought and she topped it off while you were people watching.”

“I don’t…” Well, that’s rather unnerving, “I don’t remember fading off.”

“It’s fine. I asked you why seven months ago too, and you didn’t answer.”

“Seven months ago we were in Georgia, I think… Arkansas?” I shrugged, grabbing two more packets of sugar. What number cup was this? “The Delhanson case.”

“Ah, yeah, Mount Holly Cemetery.”

“Right, that was the last time I remember being really calm.” I nodded, wrapped my fingers around my cup and decided that  _ no _ , I really didn’t need another refill. 

“What did you do that’s different from now?” 

“Well…” Shit! I closed my eyes and knew there was no way I could tell her what happened, but she was still sitting there expecting an answer when I opened them again. “It wasn’t good, let’s just go with that.”

It took her a moment, and then she was sitting back, eyes comically wide before she mouthed the word “oh,” but no sound came from her.

“Look, it’s been nothing since then, I swear.” I raised both hands again and watched the way she narrowed her eyes, not at me but like she was thinking it through. And the time just ticked on. I rubbed my forehead and finally had enough. “Okay, could you say something? Like anything would be better than this? Please.”

“It helped though?” 

Wasn’t expecting that.

“It always helps,” I sighed. Honesty was the best policy, unless you were dealing with Dean and then adamantly deny was always the best course of action. 

Her eyes met mine with a hint of a grin, “not bad.”

Shocker. “Say what?” 

“Seven months and you’re just now feeling the effects of not using, that’s impressive.”

“It’s not a drug problem, G.”

“No, but it’s an addiction, one that was pretty debilitating in the past, and here you are seven months clean.”

“Okay,” I pinched the bridge of my nose, “can we find another topic because talking about it isn’t helping take the edge off.”

“Sex.”

“Oh, my God!” 

“Sex could help.”

“Not here!”

“You said not to talk about it, so I’m suggesting an alternative. You and Sam haven’t been…”

“Please, stop.”

“It’s only natural to get sexually…” I grabbed my coat and got up, turning swiftly to the door, and I  _ heard _ her laughing behind me. “Lancing!”

I waved at her without looking back and stepped out of the building onto the sidewalk. It was like the night before, a strange sort of sense settling over me as soon as I stepped out away from the building, but this time, I was ready for it. 

Gwen came giggling out the door a few minutes later, stopped beside me and only grinned. I kept my eyes narrowed, my lips free of any type of humor, and my hands tucked into my pockets. That’s when she made a peace offering… a cup of Joe for the road.

I shook my head, took the travel cup, and sighed, before giving in and smiling as the two of us headed towards the car.

It was time to meet the Wessons.

~~~~~

The Steel Visitor Center was a large stone house, very  _ Sound of Music _ style and I’m not even sure why I associated with that movie but no matter what I did, or how I looked at it, I couldn’t shake the image of little people in lederhosen dancing out. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the movie I was thinking of but the fact that it was nearly nine and by now Dean would have been asking for a beer. 

Yes, I was thinking about Dean, sue me. He had gotten into a heated text battle with Gwen on the way over from breakfast that made me think that he almost had the idea of driving up here. Dean hated the woods, anything to do with it made him cringe, which kinda sucked since more than a third of the things that Gwen and I tracked lived in exactly that… the woods. I’m pretty sure the other third lived in water, and the last… well, they kinda picked and chose where they wanted to haunt.

So, it was either Dean just being his usual self or he had some sort of nightmare. That usually got him a bit up in arms as far as what we were doing, but it brought me full circle right back to the fact that I couldn’t get the whole dancing Von Trapp family out of my head. 

Until Gwen slapped me solidly on the arm. 

I couldn’t even be mad, I was just standing in the middle of the parking lot, staring at a building, but she was glaring.

“What?” I shrugged, trying to look innocent, but it was the way she tilted her head to the waiting Wessons that stood up by the door that got me to nod. “Yeah, okay, let’s do this.”

They were definitely hunters, decked out in just as many layers as I was, hiding firearms and knives in strategic hiding spots, but there was definitely something different about them. Dean said… and there was that voice again… that Chris was the level-headed one and Sarah was the wild child, but both of them just seemed a little sullen this morning, it made me curious why.

It didn’t take me long to find out.

“David’s gone missing.” Ranger Steve Tamos stated from behind the counter, and the Wesson’s threw each other this glance that said something but I wasn’t sure what. 

“Where?” Gwen was the one to break the silence between us. I was just sitting back to watch because there was this feeling… and I know I say that a lot but it was the same issue as in town and my fingers were itching to cast something. “And when?”

“East of the drive,” he replied, but there was a question in his voice, before he pointed to her, then me, and back and looked at the siblings. “Who’s this?”

“Help.” Chris replied, dryly and Ranger Steve gave a slow nod, before he reached for the keys and nodded to a closed office door. 

“Follow me,” he grumbled, like it was some sort of put out to get the help he needed, because they definitely needed help considering people just kept popping off the map. As he swung the door open, he glared at each one of us while we passed and stepped behind me when the door closed. “And don’t touch anything.”

The room was filled with webcam monitors and I chanced a glance up at Gwen. We had seen the ones they set up for the public website but these were far, far more intense. They covered the entire drive -- west and east rims -- and the overlook, which was great since people had a tendency to jump. 

While the whole visitor’s center was filled with information about the park and its creation, this room was full of what Gwen and I needed… visuals. 

I found a monitor listed as the Northeast corner of East Rim Drive and focused on it while Gwen seemed to follow whatever lead was in her head to several of the other ones, and while life around me seemed to fade out, I could still hear her voice.

“You said he disappeared East of the drive, I’m going to assume you mean east of the East Rim?”

“Northeast, actually,” he had cleared his throat, apparently not liking the fact that he was under Gwen’s eye. She was used to it. She knew she could be pretty intense but she used it to her favor.

“Was that anywhere in the area where Henry went missing?” And she was suddenly by my side, staring at the same unmoving picture I was.

“Yes, actually, he was out checking the campsites out there. We usually have a designated spot for camping but you can get a permit if you know the area well enough. We knew Dylan was raised here, with his father and all, so when he decided to get a permit for the site, no one thought anything of it.”

“Thinking of it now, aren’t ya?” I mumbled under my breath, only loud enough that Gwen could hear me and she only scoffed at it. I stood up, cracked my neck, and turned towards the others as Gwen bumped me out of the way, moving down the row of monitors. “So, two campers and a Ranger inside of a week, week and a half? Is that usual for you?”

“No, not this time of year,” Ranger Steve crossed his arms as he looked me over. You know outside of the Gods-awful green uniform, he was pretty good looking, light green eyes, just this side of hazel, and a bit of scruff, complete with gray highlights… very good looking. But, the lack of trust in his eyes was clear and evident. 

Wait.. did he just say… “What do you mean not this time of year?”

“We usually have more people go missing in the winter than now. With the snow fall this high in the elevations and the sudden interest to go walking on the lake. Well, people lose their internal compass in a white out, and sometimes that ice isn’t as thick as they think.”

“Slackers,” I rolled my eyes at him, and went to the maps on the wall, detailed maps that had spots marked with little red dots. To say I knew what they meant was an understatement, but to see so many more than Gwen and I had dragged up was shocking in of itself. “Hey… G, take a look.”

She twirled away from her post and came over, narrowing her eyes at the map. Snatching a pen from the table, she stepped closer and put the pen to the paper.

“Hey! You can’t…” he stepped up to me just as she drew the pen down but his protest stopped when he saw there were no marks on the paper. “What are you doing?”

“Investigating a theory.” She spoke plainly, which got me to smirk at him and shrug when he looked at me for more information. She tapped the pen on the paper, and leaned in closer. “What’s here?”

“Nothing.” Ranger Steve admitted, and Gwen glanced at me.

“Something,” I whispered, and turned to the door that led out to the overlook. Chris had the same idea apparently because he met me at the door, swung it open, and the two of us stepped out onto the deck of the Sinnott Memorial Overlook -- there was a sign, you couldn’t miss it -- and I don’t think I had ever seen anything more beautiful, or deadly, in my life. 

Crater Lake stretched before us, a large, circular body of water, with a small island off to the west side, which wasn’t really an island but part of the structure of the lake floor some nineteen-hundred feet down. It wasn’t bottomless, though with sediment I’m sure it felt that way. They said volcanic activity had the tip of whatever hill or mountain this was caving in on itself, creating the crater, and with the winters and the rain, here it sat for the rest of the world to see.

“Looks cold.” I whispered, stepping up to the stone wall that came up to about my waist, but Chris just smirked and leaned on it… asshole. His height allowed for viewing over the wall and I glanced as far as I could before I stepped back. “Pretty.”

“Afraid of heights?” He questioned softly, turning to look at me.

“Nah, heights are cool, the falling is what gets me.” I smiled at him as I made my way around to the other side of the covered space. It was a year-round observation point. “You and your sister been doing this long?”

“Hunter father, hunter mother.” Chris smiled, as he continued to look out. “Pretty much grew up with it.” I leaned as far over as I could in the corner before letting my feet leave the ground to really get a good look at the nine-hundred foot drop. Then there were hands on my waist and I looked over my shoulder at Chris. “Don’t need you to test that falling fear you have.”

“Ha, yeah, probably not a good idea,” I slipped back, finally on my feet, and took in the way he stuffed his hands in his pockets, but there was a scowl on his face, or maybe that was just the way he looked. “Thanks, though.”

“No problem,” he shrugged and walked away. “So, how about you? You said you grew up with Singer? How was that?”

“Terrifying and interesting, but he was a hunter too, and so was my dad. I get it from both paternal figures, I guess.” The door opened and Ranger Steve, Sarah, and Gwen stepped out, the two women speaking softly together as if they were comparing notes and I shook my head. “Oh, look, she made a friend.”

“Wouldn’t that be great?” The older brother smirked. Looks like they were just like us, keeping each other safe, and strangers at arm’s length. “You two find anything?”

“Well, we’re going to have to leave the safety of your favorite place,” Sarah smirked, and you could definitely tell they were family, because that turn of the lips was identical. “We know how much you love this overlook.”

“Oh.” My turn to grin as I looked at him, “not a fan of heights either?” The only response I got was a roll of his eyes before he headed back towards the door, and that brought my attention back to the younger Wesson, and Gwen -- who was caught by the beauty of the lake herself. “What did you two brainiacs find?”

“Well,” Sarah sighed, “looks like we’re going east.”

“My favorite direction.” 

And not at all surprising.

Gwen’s eyes met mine as I stepped up to the stone wall again and leaned on it. The bright blue sky reflected perfectly on the crystal clear water of the wonder before us. The small island seemed to be a blight on its surface. Not large enough to house anything substantial but just big enough to give us both the same thought.

We had no clue what was going on here, and only one way to start.

“Come on,” I sighed, patting her on the shoulder as I left the wall, “let’s get this thing started.”

And with that, she turned and followed me out of the building.


	3. Gwen

**Gwen**

We were stopped a multitude of times along Rim Drive in tourist traffic jams just trying to make it out to the area of Cleetwood Cove, passing several rest areas off to the side of the road, but the closer we came to the northeast region of the trail, the antsier Jai became behind the wheel. She shifted in her seat, tapped on the steering wheel, rolled the windows up and then back down several times, and when she reached to adjust the volume  _ again _ , I slapped her hand.

It took everything for me not to snap at her, especially now when she was in such an agitated state. “What’s going on with you?” 

“I don’t know,” she grumbled, slumping down in the seat as we moved slowly along the eighteen plus miles of winding road that gave us an amazing view of the lake, but while she was always one for pictures, this time I was barely bugged to stop. “It’s just…” she rolled the window down again, “there’s a feeling here, makes me all itchy.”

“Same as the one in down?” Now I was curious.

“Bigger bugs,” she shrugged and I assumed that meant that the ones in town were ants compared to the scarab-sized feeling now. “I can’t pinpoint it and it’s not like anything I’ve felt before. Whatever this is, you can bet -- sure as shit -- it’s not demons.”

“You almost always think it’s demons,” and I’m pretty sure I’d said that to her before, but this time she just frowned and shook her head, not giving me her usual response. Oh, she was serious. “Okay, so it’s not demons.”

“This is big,” she sighed, rolling her shoulders as if to relieve some sort of tension. “I think I need some benadryl.”

“No way,” I cringed, “the last time I gave you that stuff was on the way to meet up with Ash, and we all know how that ended up.”

“Yeah,” she grinned, and I knew that smile, “I certainly figured out that problem, didn’t I?”

“No one needs to be reminded of your perverted dreams, Jai, least of all me, so please, keep any details to yourself.” It was my turn to man the windows and mine went all the way down, drawing in the cool, crisp, clean air of the lake, but it didn’t stop her from fidgeting, unoccupied leg bouncing below the wheel. “This is probably the most beautiful place Bobby’s ever sent us.”

“In the states,” she added.

“Agreed, in the states. It’s, what, about sixty-five out here, barely any wind?”

“Oh yeah, a beautiful, perfect, spectacular place to visit. Which is all good,” the grin fell from her face, “except for one small problem.”

I was a glutton, I knew it, she knew it. I just had to ask. “And what’s that?” 

“Well, for starters, and this might be the biggest and only reason I care about… This park  _ eats _ people.”

We slowed to let oncoming cars go before going around a half-dozen bikers, before she shrugged and that got me to roll my eyes.

“It doesn’t eat people.”

“Does so! How else do you explain the lack of bodies, and mind you, we both saw the maps. There are way too many of them to just be considered a coincidence.”

“There’s at least two hundred bodies on Everest, how is that any different than here? We’re at least six-thousand feet above sea level.”

“One; Everest is almost five times higher than here, so think about it. They have two hundred in just under a century. We have how many now? And two; Lake Tahoe is higher.”

“How do you know Lake Tahoe is higher? How do you even come up with that random fact?”

“Hey, you know cryptids, I know driving… just… stop arguing. This is a stupid argument.” She growled, flung herself back against the seat like a petulant child, and huffed at me. “It doesn’t matter because I win.”

“That’s because you’re three, now what’s your problem?”

She ran a hand down her face, drew in a breath, and shook her head. “I don’t like it.”

“No one likes it, that’s why we’re here.” 

“No, I mean their story, I don’t like it.”

“You don’t believe our new found friends?”

“Not saying they’re lying, but,” she gave a quick shrug, “something doesn’t add up. Dude’s hunter… ish, right? Knows the layout of the land kinda thing…”

“Not this again.”

“Yes  _ this _ , Gwen! This! This! This! Until we either bring them home alive or in body bags because  _ this _ is a big question. Why the hell would a guy come out here and camp knowing full well what goes bump in the night?”

“Guess we won’t have the answer until we find him.”

“And what’s up with Ranger Steve and the whole not this time of year bullshit?” I pinched the bridge of my nose. Better to let her spiral now than when we get there. “One,” and she was on the lists again, “if they fell through the ice -- and that’s a big if with the altitudes and average temperatures this place must have in the winter time -- where are the bodies? Don’t you think they would have found more of them if they were floating in the water, especially something this crystal clear?”

She had a point, but I narrowed my eyes at her, just letting her go on her rant.

“Second, or two, or what the hell ever,” she slowed to a stop to let people cross the road for pictures, “average snowfall in the winter at this elevation is what? Up to fifteen feet by springtime. It has a higher rate than most of the places around here.”

“How do you even know this?”

“I Googled it,” she huffed, like it was the worst thing in the world to do. 

“When?” Because really? We went from the visitor’s center to the car.

“I was in the bathroom, and I had a theory…”

“You Googled in the bathroom.” 

Her eyes went wide, “no need to make it sound so dirty. You Google in the shower, I know, I’ve heard you.”

“That’s not possible, I’m very quiet.”

“Sure, when you’re not bitching at the fact that they have some crypto information wrong. Trust me, I know exactly when you Google.” 

I sat back in my seat, watched the smirk on her lips rise a little more, and shook my head. We were completely off topic now but it was what we both needed. She was right, there’s no way there wouldn’t be bodies, or evidence.

“Are we almost there?” 

“Almost.” That word was barely a whisper, but she had stopped fidgeting until she cranked the wheel suddenly to the right and pulled the car over on a small turn around. 

“What’s going on?”

“Hey, check this out.” Jai grabbed her phone and jumped out of the car, glanced both ways, and jogged across the street. 

I drew in a deep breath and followed, meeting her along the stone wall that separated us from the drop down to the lake’s surface. She was taking pictures of everything and a panoramic of the lake, but it was the constant tap on my arm by her knuckles that got me to look away from my own camera and down where she was pointing.

Sticking out of the water, in clear view, was the top half of a strange little thing they called “Old Man” up at the lake. The old Hemlock they say has been floating around the lake for over a century, and while not a whole lot of it floated above the surface, at least thirty-feet held it upright below.  _ Upright _ . And Jai had spotted it from the car. 

“Well, look at that,” was the only thing I could think of before proceeding to take a picture of one of the lakes more interesting -- and least deadly -- legends, or several pictures. 

Jai was like a little kid in awe of it because it took me three times tugging on her arm to get her to move away from the edge, something usually easier to accomplish. 

~~~~~

Ranger Steve pulled the SUV off the road on the northeast side of Rim Drive, down onto a small dirty trail barely big enough to take his vehicle down, and skillfully, without bottoming out once, Jai fit the car through following close behind. 

Once far enough in, he pulled over, which only got a huff from her as she rolled her eyes, maneuvered off the path and managed to park on the grass in such a way that if we needed to leave in a hurry she wouldn’t have to play musical cars. 

From there, the campsite was just a few hundred yards into the lush forest. We weren’t more than a few feet past the tree line and Jai stopped, her eyes going up to the canopy above us, but that didn’t tell me anything as I stepped up beside her.

“What?” I kept my voice low, eyes scanning the forest. She shook her head, barely moved any part of her body and finally glanced at me.

“There’s nothing,” she whispered back, eyes on mine as I stilled and listened. “No birds, no insects.” Her eyes focused on the three that had moved on without us. “No footsteps.”

She was right. It was complete silence, and her eyes flashed a quick murky black before she blinked it away, clearing her throat. “And no demons?”

“No demonic activity.” She shrugged and moved on, leaving me to glance around before I followed. Her hand was tucked behind her back, under her jacket, on the grip of the gun she kept there, but otherwise she seemed relaxed. “Come on, G, don’t fall behind.”

The thought of losing sight of them and not being able to follow their trail was a little unnerving, even more so was the possibility of not being heard if I called out to them. What I found when I stepped into the next clearing didn’t really surprise me. 

The nearly perfect circle of open space had been cleared of branches, pine needles, and any other wandering flora, and it was clean. Jai was squatting down in the furthest easterly directly, and Chris stood in the middle. Sarah paced the outer edge of the site and Ranger Steve hadn’t moved from where I was.

But there was something wrong. 

I cleared my throat, getting Jai to glance up at me as she slipped her earbuds in and gave me a small shake of her head. That wasn’t good. She took out her phone, turned on the music, and proceeded to move around, taking pictures of everything as she bopped just slightly to the music in her ears. 

I turned to face the Ranger, who looked bored as hell, and waited for him to acknowledge my presence. 

With a sigh, he finally turned to me. “Can I help you, Miss?”

“Where’s the camping gear?” He suddenly looked at me like I had two heads, as if no one had ever asked him that before. “I assume for any missing persons you would keep that all until the search was called off.”

“Well, ah,” he stumbled.

“You did keep it, right?”

“Yeah, it’s in the storage at the center, but why?” 

“There’s nothing,” Jai spoke up, those words from earlier echoing in my head as she walked up to us, removed the ear phones and glanced at the Ranger. “Not a single clue.”

That was when Chris and Sarah walked up, crowding in behind her, and she took a deep breath before backing away just a bit, making sure there was no one at her back. 

It was Chris that spoke up, his voice filled with anger. “Nothing? Seriously? There’s a rest stop right out there.” His arms gestured out towards the cars. “There’s no way there’s nothing.”

Jai glared at him, really glared, but didn’t say a word. The walkie on Steve’s belt chirps and he lowers the volume as he looks over the four of us. 

“I need to leave,” he announced, and though none of us did it, I was pretty sure all of us were thinking the same reaction, a nice roll of our eyes. “If there's nothing here, then there’s no reason for me to stay, the four of you can find your way back, I assume.”

“You assume correctly,” Jai mouthed off as she turned away from him, her attention locked on something to her right, a small path that she drew her phone out to take pictures of, and she stepped away, catching Chris’s attention. I watched her for a moment as she drew the pocket knife from her belt but turned my gaze back to the Ranger. 

“We’ll be by later today to look at the camping gear.” I assured him, because I was pretty certain he thought I was going to drop it. With a scowl, he nodded, gave everyone a big  _ you’re on your own _ wave and stopped off through the trees. We waited until the sounds of his boots on the crisp leaves disappeared before I felt Chris’s eyes on me. “Okay, Jai, let’s go over that again.”

“Go over what?” Chris snapped, stepping forwards. “You know, Bobby sent you up here because he thought you were the ones best qualified to help us, yet here you are telling me you’ve found nothing? How does that help at all? Dylan was out here with his son, there’s no way there’s nothing!”

“Cool your jets, Wesson,” Jai stood, moving back to stand by me. “We didn’t say we  _ found _ nothing, we said there was nothing.”

“How does that change anything?” Sarah practically growled that out, and I saw Jai’s lips turn up. She was having way too much fun with this. Anything to get people up in arms. 

“Simple really,” I couldn’t drag this out as much as Jai would have liked me to, “the lack of evidence is -- in fact -- evidence.” 

Chris rolled his eyes, crossed his arms, and gave me a look like Dean would have, as if he were about to shoot something before he glanced around the camp again. I saw the moment that it struck him, as if he finally got what I was saying.

“There’s no fire pit,” he mumbled out, moving in the direction that he had remembered seeing the tent set up, “no holes for the spikes.”

“There’s a lot of that actually, a  _ lack of _ .” Jai shifted away, popping in her earbuds as she went back to busying herself with pictures.

“What do you mean there’s no fire pit?” Sarah was obviously still confused.

“No scorch marks, no shifted dirt, not even the stones he would have used to build the pit itself, and if he dug a hole, well,” Chris gestured out with his hand at the entire site. “What else is missing?”

“No flattening of brush, no broken branches, no bent leaves.” Jai stated without even looking up from the spot she was so invested in. “No indication that anything living ever, and I do mean  _ ever _ stepped foot in this circle, including,” she glanced up at me, “the search party.”

“What?” Sarah barked, but I still hadn’t moved from the spot I was in as I continued to survey the area. She was right, taking in the spots she had found so strangely interesting this whole time, I realized that she was looking for any sort of indication that anything had walked through, but it all looked so pristine.

“It’s dirt,” she shrugged, kicking at the pine needles that covered the floor of the site, “don’t you find it strange that the only footsteps in them are ours?”

_ “Mommy!” _ The faint sound of a child, the same one from my dreams, broke the silence that had filled the camp. As I tried to pinpoint it, moving my eyes to the path to the right, focusing on the direction it came from, I noticed Jai hadn’t moved. She should have heard it, those earbuds were just a decoy, she wasn’t playing any music, but she hadn’t even shifted.  _ “Mommy!” _

A loud scream from the forest had me flinching, heartbeat rising as I stared in the direction it definitely came from this time, and did my best to keep from running towards it, or running away because for the first time in a very long time, my fight or flight had kicked in and fear ran through my body. 

“Hey… G?” Jai’s voice broke the fearful stare I had been locked in with the path that led further into the forest and I blinked away the focus to land right on her worried expression. “You okay?”

I took a few deep breaths, clenched my teeth, and answered through them. “Fine.”

“Oh, good,” and she didn’t just brush me off, she let me have a moment to process it. The uncaring way she replied wasn’t for me, but the benefit of the others, to keep them calm, though I felt the brush of her hand as she stepped closer. Point of contact was a thing for her, especially in situations like this where she could apparently  _ feel _ what was really going on. “Do we need to leave?”

“No, but I have a theory on what might have happened.”

“Fantastic,” she grinned, patting me on the upper arm as the smile she was wearing faded from her face. “Because I did a little signature scan.” She was totally serious now, “and we’re kinda screwed.”

“What? Explain.”

“You first.”

“Jai,” I rubbed my forehead rather roughly, closing my eyes. “We don’t have time for this.”

“Oh, trust me, we’re going to make time, because the last few days with you has seriously freaked me out, so you tell me what you know, and then I’ll let you in on my own secret.”

“Will-o’-wisps,” I whispered.

“No,” she shook her head, replying as she drew out her one word protest, but I didn’t move. “You have got to be kidding me, fairy lights?” 

“Mimics more to the point.”

“How does that make it a wisp?”

“Most wisps are benign.”

“Yeah, but you’re talking thousands of acres of mountain forest, that makes nothing in this place benign.”

“Exactly, which is why I mentioned a mimic, something possibly resembling a wisp, which might get the boy to follow, or a sound to get Henry to follow.”

“Makes sense, so what did you hear?”

I stepped back, she was way too intuitive for her own good, but I knew I had given myself away at that point, and shook my head. “Just a sound.”

“Sure, because sounds  _ always _ make you pale and pasty, and with your complexion, pale is not a thing.” She patted me on the arm again, turned and went back to her research, knowing that we were definitely talking about this later. 

I saw her settle amongst the foliage directly across the camp from me, and when she was focused once again, I stepped towards that path, if only to see where it would lead, but as I stood at the head of it, my heart started to race again. 

_ “Mommy!” _ It was familiar, so damn familiar, but the explanation I gave Jai wouldn’t account for this, for the reason it instilled such fear in me. Mimics used the sounds to draw you out, familiar voices of people you’ve lost, or people in your own party very much alive, but this child’s voice... I knew it but couldn’t place it.

“Okay,” Chris sighed in frustration. “What are we doing now?”

“Well, we have a few different directions to take,” Jai spoke up, moving back towards the center of the circle, catching my attention. “We could go back to the car, head back to the road, or we could follow her nose.”

I blinked as she raised her brows at me. “Why?”

She stepped closer, held the phone out, and smiled when I took it. “Let’s just say you might be onto something.”

Looking down at the screen was a photo of the same path I now stood in front of. A quarter of the way down, just around a small curve, was a very distinct shape, one made up entirely of mist. It was nearly seventy. There was no way there should be any mist in the area, and it was late enough in the day that any fog from temperature variations would have disappeared by now. I held the phone up, compared it to the path, and shook my head. Mist or not, that shouldn’t be there.

“Fine,” I replied, handing the phone back. “We’ll go your way.”

“Awesome,” she grinned, but Sarah once again protested.

“The cars are that way, and don’t get me wrong this is a fascinating way of hunting and following the clues, but can I just point out how many people have gone missing from just taking a stroll into these woods.”

“Which is why we’re calling it in.” I turned my eyes on Chris, who pulled his phone from his pocket, ready to give me a bullshit line, but the scowl that fell from his face told me something wasn’t right. “There’s no signal, is there?”

“Not a single bar.” He paused in putting the phone away when I raised my hand.

“Step out of the circle.” I suggested and confusion was clear in his eyes. “I have a feeling there’s something in here blocking it.”

Chris huffed, like it was the biggest put out in the world and stepped closer to Jai, his back to the path, which sent my heart rate skyrocketing, before he lifted the phone and glanced at the screen, brows furrowed as he gave a little shake of his head. He dialed out without another word in my direction and placed the call.

“Wesson, Christopher, ID 14564.” He paused, this time making eye contact and drew in a breath, “yep. Yes. We’re taking the path right off the site. Yes, I’m well aware.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “Okay, yeah. Mark it. Give us three hours.”

I caught the way that Jai mouthed “three hours,” and pretended to get weak in the knees before she grinned at Sarah, who had to hide her laugh with her hands. Chris ended the call, and slipped it away. 

“So,” Jai grinned, “are we locked in, Ranger Chris?” 

Oh, I hated when she gave them pet names, it meant she was going to do everything in her power to win them over, or piss them off. There was no happy medium. Chris gave a low  _ hmmph _ and turned to look at me.

“Three hours,” he repeated, then gestured towards the path. “Should we go?”

“Where does it lead?” It was definitely something we needed to know before we stepped onto it.

“It circles around to the Whitebark Pine trail stop.”

“Be back,” Jai spoke up quickly and headed off towards the car. I sighed, really wishing she wouldn’t do things like that. Her nature didn’t keep her from being taken, in fact, it probably made her a bigger target, but she jogged off and returned without so much as a breathless sigh, a red backpack over her shoulder and I shook my head. “What? You don’t come out to a place like this without preparations. We’ve got water,” she unzipped the bag and started to pilfer through it, “granola bars, which I know you hate, lemon bars… ooh, chocolate. More water…”

“Okay, enough.” I sighed, “let’s just go.”

She zipped the bag, hiked it up on her shoulders and took the lead, which was strange all on it’s own because that meant three people at her back. Sarah followed quickly, which left Chris and I to cover the rear. 

It didn’t take long for the roles to change and for Jai to figure out she had absolutely no idea where to go, which pushed Chris into the lead, and Sarah to the back, giving us the opportunity to talk about her little test.

“I’m telling ya,” she whispered, glancing back at Sarah, “this whole place is a magnet for the supernatural.” She looked mildly annoyed as she shook her head, but it was the fear in her eyes that got me. “It was red.”

“I thought it was supposed to be green.” 

She rolled her eyes at me. “Different cast. I’ve evolved since then, tweaked it for a wider range.”

“Okay, so which part?” Because that was what I really needed to know, I needed a direction so her little description wasn’t going to do me a bit of good. Her eyes went wide as she turned and stared at me, still walking in a forward direction and I wondered how long it would take her to trip over a root. 

“ _ All _ of it.” Her arms went wide in a grand display and I scowled. Well, that wasn’t good. “The whole park, G, as far as I could scan, it all had a signature.”

“Why?” 

Her shrug was nonchalant, like the prospect of it all being a beacon was scary but the why part was simple. “You’re standing on a once active volcano, nothing says  _ elevator from Hell _ like that. I mean think about it. Molten lava from the Earth’s core ripped a hole in the ground and sent ash and death spewing from a tiny opening.” Her hands went from a praying position to wide and spraying and I could only think of one thing, which she apparently caught onto. “You’re gross! Here I am talking about E.L.Es and you’re being a pervert, way to stay on track.”

“It’s just…” I shook my head, “do you even realize you’re doing this stuff or do you plan it?”

She mimicked me for a moment but stopped dead as we cleared the woods and into the sun, the trail had opened up, giving us a grand view of the mountains. “Wow!” Her eyes were wide as she dug out her phone and snapped a few pictures. “Dude, that’s Newbury.” She was like a kid in a candy store, “and that’s Three Sisters.”

“What’s with people naming things after siblings. The last time we dealt with anything that had sisters in the name…”

“We walked away because that was so screwed up.” 

I followed her lead, because when were we ever going to see something this beautiful again, and snapped away, sending pictures to Dean and Cas, as I heard her let out a small maniacal laugh as she undoubtedly posted them to Instagram under her assumed identity. 

Making  _ Tiny Dancer _ into an anagram to get away with posting on social media was ingenious, I admit, but the amount of time she spent on it going back and forth with a particular young man was getting to be a bit much. She also had an addiction to screenshotting. 

Chris leaned against the fence, watched as we both played with our phones and took multiple shots before he pushed away, and started to walk on, a clear sign that it was time to go. 

“Did you know this whole range was active once?” Jai mumbled as she followed behind, eyes still locked on the phone.

“You’re gonna trip,” I sighed as she waved me off then kicked the toe of her boot on a root, giving a little stumble. Her only recourse was to give the root the dirtiest of looks before she went back to the phone. “Told ya.”

“No, that root did that on purpose, just kinda snuck in there.” 

“How do the two of you  _ not _ get killed on hunts?” Sarah scoffed behind us and that got Jai to look up, first at me then at her.

“What do you mean? We’ve done that a few times -- the whole being dead thing -- it’s a bit overrated if you ask me.” She waved her hand, slipped her phone away and stuffed her hands in her pockets. “Now, flying… that’s a trip. You wanna feel like the world’s about to go to hell, you fly.”

“I have flown.” Sarah shook her head. “You’re a strange pair.”

“Not so much strange,” I started… the sound of a little girl crying filled the air and I stopped dead on the path, getting Jai -- who clearly wasn’t paying attention -- to bump right into me. 

“Dude!” She grouched, glared at me and stepped around, but she didn’t walk away, just looked as I stared off into the woods. “What is it?”

“A child.” I kept my voice low, almost so tiny she could barely hear, but her eyes followed the same path mine were.

“Mimics?” She stepped closer to the edge of the path. “I don’t hear any…”

A  _ scream _ echoed loudly through the woods, loud enough to make the four of us cover our ears, close enough that my heart started to race, and the birds took to the skies. Jai had her gun out, Sarah moved to put her back to me, eyeing over the way we came, and Chris stood statue still, just waiting, listening for any actual movements in the woods.

And then there was silence.

“Well, that was kinda creepy,” Jai huffed out, not lowering her gun, but standing straighter as she glanced around, and I knew what she was looking for, and how she was looking because she never turned towards Chris. The possibility of him seeing her eyes would put this whole operation in jeopardy. “I don’t see anything.”

“Me either,” Sarah spoke up, and the smaller hunter rolled her eyes. I frowned at her, getting an annoyed look in return before I turned my attention to Sarah. “Which way did that come from?”

“That way,” Chris pointed out, into the woods to our right. “There was something strange about it.”

“Sure, because everything about a little kid screaming that loud is completely normal on every other occasion.” Jai bitched, tucked her gun away and again moved to the edge of the trail line. I grabbed her arm, halting her movements. “Oh, come on, I’m not going to get eaten.”

“I’m sure Henry said the same thing to his son before they both disappeared. You said it yourself this place eats people.”

“That’s not what I meant.” But, she stepped back and shrugged. “Can we go then, standing here not doing anything is making me itchy?”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Chris finally broke his statue-like stance and looked in the direction we were going, then back where we had come from. “Come on, we’ll go back this way, head towards the cars. There’s another four miles of trail before we even hit the road.” He dug his phone out of his pocket and hit the screen. Apparently we had signal this time. Bringing it to his ear, I watched as his eyes landed right on Jai’s and a smug smile crossed his lips as the staring contest between them began. “This is Wesson, Christopher, ID 14564,” he paused, never broke the lock, and sighed. “We’re two miles southeast of the site, headed back.” Oh, he lost because there went the annoyed eye roll and he shook his head, “because,  _ Jack _ , there’s nothing down this way.” 

He pulled the phone away and scowled before angrily tapping it with his finger and stuffing it in his pocket. Jai giggled, actually giggled, which just got Sarah’s attention, and I knew what was coming next.

“It’s not as fun, is it? Can’t slam a cell phone down in someone’s ear.” She smiled at him, and Chris just sighed. 

“Let’s go,” he walked past us to take the lead, as I stared down at Jai.

“What?” She smirked, and stepped away, following after him. “So, Chris, do all those numbers mean you really are a park ranger?” I heard her question as she doubled her steps to keep up with him, and I closed my eyes, finally moving in their direction. “Can I see your ranger hat? Do they let you carry an actual  _ legal _ gun or are you just packing the ones we use on hunts?”

My watch vibrated against my wrist, causing me to take my attention away from the way Chris stiffened at her questions but the only thing that popped up on the watch face was a text from Dean.

**Dean** :  _ You okay? _

Guess it was time to make a phone call. I unzipped the breast pocket of my coat and dug out the earbuds, before blocking Jai and the other two out long enough to connect. I felt my whole body relax at the sound of his voice.

*****

Somehow -- and I don’t think I would ever ask -- Jai had managed to convince the siblings that they didn’t need to escort us to dinner and that we would be in contact as soon as we went over the photos that Jai had taken. Apparently, she had learned a unique technique from one of the ghost hunting shows we entertain ourselves with while camping out overnights if the  _ Cowboy Channel _ wasn’t available. 

So, here we sat at Beckie’s Café, twenty minutes west of the visitor’s center and now more than an hour from the hotel, but Jai was sitting quietly for a change, her phone hooked up to the laptop we had stored in the car as she scrolled through pictures and that alone made me happy. Well that… and the barbecued meal that sat in front of me as we took up a small picnic table in the back “area” of the outdoor section of the café. 

The sun was still out, and the weather was warm enough to enjoy the food without it getting cold too fast, but you couldn’t tell that it was nice out with the fact that Jai still wore her two of her hiking layers, a long-sleeved base layer, and an insulated jacket. She never did stay warm, but the flannels were at home for the first time in a while. 

Her concentration was set directly on the photos, so when I tapped the table beside her, I saw the minute jump from her body before her narrowed eyes slowly moved to land on mine. “Anything?”

“Well, yes and no,” she sighed, going for some of the meat she had stripped from the rib bone with her fingers. “We have the mist photo which shows evidence of something but the rest is almost exactly like we told the kids, nothing, abso-fucking-lotely nothing.”

“That’s good.” I shrugged at her.

“Not really, we have nothing to go on, at least not physical proof. What wipes a site clean? I mean I know some things that can make it appear as if there’s literally nothing there, but that doesn’t mean it  _ physically _ changes things in the area. And that blackout…”

“What blackout?”

“Really?” She snickered at me, though it wasn’t that I didn’t know what she was talking about, I just needed more clarification. “Okay, in addition to the nothing that was inside the site, didn’t you notice the lack of insects and birds surrounding it? And how far away we were when we finally ran into some critters? I mean that scream scared the hell out of them, sending them from the trees. I thought we were caught in a Hitchcock movie.”

“You’re so dramatic.” 

She grabbed the corn-on-the-cob from her plate and raised it to her mouth. “Sure, I’m dramatic because I have an irrational fear of being pecked to death, while  _ you _ are completely normal freezing at the sound of screaming in the woods.”

“It was a child.”

“It wasn’t.” The way she said it was as if we had been arguing over it for hours, eyes on her corn as she suddenly halted in her mission to eat and her eyes met mine. “Wait, you heard a kid?”

“Yes, a young girl.”

“No.” She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t young, it was weird and loud… you heard a kid?”

“Jai,” I folded my hands on the table and leaned in closer. “Did you…”

“You ask if I hit my head and I will throw this ear at you,” her voice was low, threatening, and kind of funny. “I’m telling you, Guinevere, it wasn’t a kid. It was high-pitched, close by, and more than likely a bull elk.” 

“Elk? That’s your guess?”

“Have you ever heard one? They sound like the Ringwraiths from  _ Lord of the Rings _ .” She crunched down on the cob and hmmed pornographically, drawing a sigh from me. 

“Okay, there’s one thing about your theory that I need to question.” She glanced up at me from another bite and shrugged. “When the hell did you watch  _ Lord of the Rings _ ? You have the attention span of a two-year-old, how did you sit through a movie like that?”

“I didn’t, I listened to it,” she shrugged. “You can do two things at once, you know. Running and listening to movies are a good combination. You should try it.”

“You ran for three hours?” Maybe I was missing something.

“Oh, no.” She grabbed a napkin, wiping her hands before she went back to the rib meat. “I think it was over the course of three days, maybe. I mean I don’t really remember when it was, but yeah, so… elk. That’s my best guess.”

“So, I hear a child and you hear an  _ elk _ ?”

“I mean, it’s possible that it was a mimic or there was a kid, but not likely with the four of us there.” She seemed to be making sense, though it was rare to see her in such a serious state.

“What is it?”

She looked up at me, brows high, eyes wide. “Hmm?”

“What’s going on with you?”

“Listen,” she drew in a deep breath through her nose, and leaned on the table. “There’s nothing wrong with me, nothing wrong with us, but this place is grating on my nerves, so I’m going to apologize now for not… for being a bitch. The entire area is volcanic, old or new, it doesn’t matter the activity is still there and it’s like sensory overload. I can’t get rid of this creepy, crawly feeling under my skin and it’s annoying the hell out of me. So, just… please, have some patience, and punch me if you need to.”

“That’s all you had to say,” I smirked, and I knew she hated it.

With a huffed out “screw you,” she dropped back in her seat, fingers going to the meat on the plate beside her, eyes going back to the photos, and all I did was smile.

~~~~~

I’m not even sure what the noise from the other side of bed was, something between a moan and a whine, neither of which I wanted to find out about, but it was just going  _ on _ , like it was the end of the world, and I had finally had enough.

We had searched through the photos, found some strange little marks on the trees but nothing that would indicate anything useful in narrowing down what exactly had happened to the researchers. When it came down to it going back to the park was our only option and it was nearly eleven before she gave up and flopped down on the bed, a half hour later  _ this _ started.

I was deep into an episode of  _ Destination Unknown _ when I finally gave up the fight and sat up on the bed. Turning towards her, I came face to face with a typical Jai scene. She was lying on the corner, right leg off the bed, the other stretched out on it, feet up by the pillow. Her arms were out to her sides and her head hung over the edge so that she was watching the TV upside down.

“Cut the shit, I can’t hear him.”

She waved her hands at the TV. “You don’t need to hear him, the closed captions are on.” 

“That’s because I don’t know how to turn them off, you know how I get with multiple remotes, so why are you whining?”

Her hands moved to her stomach and she locked her fingers together before lifting her head in my direction. It was a bit disconcerting to look at her like that, the weird way her head twisted made it look as if it were disconnected. 

“I’m going to call Gabe.”

“Is that what all that hemming and hawing was about?”

“Actually, it was more of moaning and whining, but yeah, I didn’t know how to bring it up to you.” She finally turned on the bed, elbow resting right on the end and looked at me. “You don’t hate him still, right? I mean, you definitely don’t  _ like _ him, but do you really hate him?”

“I never hated him, per se, I very much disliked how he yanked you around.”

“Well, in his defense, that wasn’t all him.”

“Doesn’t matter, the fact that he cut ties and didn’t tell you what was going on after Portland, the way he just left you high and dry for any information when he knew you were in pain over him, that is what pissed me off.”

“There was a lot of shit going down upstairs,” she shrugged like it was no big deal, “I don’t blame him. Cas was in the wind, too.”

“Cas was in contact though, not leaving me wanting.” I sat up in bed, adjusting the pillows, and watched as she went back to her strange way of lying there. “Is that even comfortable?”

“The head rush is helping with the jitters,” she gave a small shrug again. “Anyway, that was why I was going to call Gabe, he’s kinda like pot, without the whole sensory stuff.”

“Yeah, because we need two of us having auditory hallucinations.” My heart stopped as soon as the words left my mouth and I heard her sit up on the bed, this time moving to close the space between us without sitting right next to me. 

“Is that what that was in the woods? Auditory?” Shit! She sounded just like Sam when he started to dig deep. I only gave her a quick nod. “Jesus, why didn’t you say anything?”

This time I did look at her. “Because we have enough bullshit going on. Besides, I have a theory, and it wasn’t something pressing at the time.”

“But it is now?” 

“Yes,” I sighed, “no. Not really.”

“It’s the same kid, isn’t it?” 

I hated when she did that.

“Yeah.” I looked away. “At the beginning of the trail, and when we stopped, it was… familiar.”

“Great, well…” She yanked off her socks, something she always put on after a shower, dropped the sleep pants to the floor, and slipped under the covers. “A mimic doesn’t seem so far from the top of the list now, does it?”

She flipped over, stomach to the mat and tucked the pillow under her head and chin, before she quickly turned and reached up, flipping off the light. 

“You should call Gabe.” I whispered, eyes not leaving her because with my lamp on I could still see her face. 

“You should probably call Cas.” And that was just a bit on the sarcastic  _ don’t tell me what to do _ side, even if she was the one that suggested it before. There was no way I was calling Castiel for anything at the moment. “G’night, G.”

“Don’t be like that.”

“I’m not  _ being _ like anything. I’m just…” her eyes opened, bright and frustrated, and she pushed up to her elbow again. “I’m tired. I’m cranky. I’m twitchy, and I told you why, so unless you got something edible in your magic bag, I should really try to go to sleep.”

She looked me over one last time, turned her back to me, and flopped down on the bed, quickly going silent. She was right, this place was throwing her off.

~~~~~

Red lights flashed around me, the edge of my vision tinted with the color, but I knew exactly where I stood. The rock walls and iron bars had never left my thoughts, not on nights like this anyway, and I felt the fear rise in me. Blood splattered the walls, the low hum of power from the caves in Portland could be felt through my whole body. 

In the cell across from me, came the strange mumbled sounds of a man’s low baritone voice, the words he spoke were familiar but not completely recognizable. It was Latin, that was all I could make out, but the chilling scream that came from the person his body hid made my heart race. His back was to me, arm raised with a flask of what I assumed was holy water high above his head, and he brought it down, splashing across his target.

She  _ screamed _ , angry and hateful, not at all as if the blessed liquid had hurt her, and the mumbled sound of a reply came from her. In reverse Enochian. I quickly pulled my eyes away as the scene replayed itself. 

In the cell beside them, Jai’s cell, I saw her squatting down against the back wall, dressed in a dirty white gown, hands bloody from the rock in her hand as she scratched over the already etched writing. Her hair was a mess, sticking up everywhere, but she was talking quietly to herself. I stepped up to the bars that separated us, and wrapped my hands around the cold iron.

“Jai?” I whispered, but shouted, if it was possible, and her head whipped in my direction. Her eyes were gone, and in their place were black, bloody holes, the dried liquid streaking down her face. She bared her teeth, cracked lips splitting more with the motion, and she went back to what she was doing.

“ _ Mommy? _ ” Came the quiet, terrifying voice of the little girl and I managed to turn my head far enough, leaning into the bars to see her. She stood in the middle of the hall, hair down over her eyes as much as it could go with how it curled, her features blurry and distorted. “ _ Mommy? _ ”

And then she  _ screamed _ !

I sat up in bed, catching my breath, as I looked around the quiet motel room. My eyes adjusted to the dark, using what little light streamed in from the slit in the curtains, and saw Jai lying on the bed beside me, spread eagle on her stomach, all three pillows pushed to the floor, her lips parted and her breathing even, although her fingers twitched, hanging off the bed more than likely inches from the blade that hid between the mattresses.

With a few seconds of telling myself that I was okay, that whatever I had seen wasn’t real, whatever I had experienced didn’t matter because I was alright, I slipped back down on the pillows and closed my eyes.

It wasn’t dark, wasn’t scary, but I knew where I was, standing just inside the cave to the Stonecoats’ liar. I could hear Sam and Dean outside, almost felt the connection to Jai, but it was Cas that I was looking for. Cas who had brought me there, who had protected me, who had made sure the others were out before coming back because that was the plan… but he wasn’t there now. 

I could only hear the chanting, the old Latin in the same deep baritone that had haunted my dream before, one that I couldn’t hear clearly enough to make out the words, but I knew… knew that it wasn’t the one that I had memories of, that Jai used most every time she exorcised a demon, that Sam and Dean had learned from their “old man.” No, this one was different, more powerful, that was all I could feel from it.

I turned around, following the sound of the words, only to come face to face with the little girl once again. She was sitting on a swing, singing to herself, and the dog ran by. 

_ “Take this…” _

“Dad?” I whispered, as I moved towards the swing. The little girl was gone.

_ “You take this, just like that, and aim for the tree, and you keep throwing until you can get a bullseye every time, and then I want you to start all over.” _

“Daddy, I can’t do that,” I whispered aloud, moving past the swings, deeper into the cave. 

_ “I want you to keep throwing, don’t listen, just become one with the knives.” _

“Dad?” 

I slipped further into the darkness, suddenly surrounded by it, and the only sound I heard was the tip of a blade digging into the wood with a strange thump. Twelve times, one with every step I took, until  _ she  _ screamed.

“ _ Mommy! _ ” 

I twirled in the darkness, heart threatening to stop, breathing quickly, almost too shallow to keep aware as the shadows grew deeper, and my world started to fade out.

_ “Gwen?”  _ Castiel’s voice invaded my senses. “ _ You can’t go in there.” _

“She’s going to die,” I managed to breathe out, but Cas still wasn’t there, I couldn’t see him.

“ _ Gwen, look at me _ .” His voice filled with panic, as I spun in a circle still trying to pinpoint him. “ _ Gwen _ !” I couldn’t control my breathing, my chest hurt with the pain of my heart racing and I fought not to scream.

“Gwen!” Jai’s voice instantly had my eyes open, and the light from the table lamp blinded me. I blinked at her a couple times as she leaned over me, concern etched on her face, until that disappeared into frustration. “Dude, that wasn’t exactly the sounds I expected when you dreamed of Cas.”

“I’m fine,” I huffed, pushing her hand from the side of my face where she insisted on touching. She scoffed, slipped from the bed and headed towards the mini-fridge only to come back with a bottle of water.

“Oh, yeah, because talking about your dad and Cas in the same dream makes everything fine.” She plunked down on the bed beside me again and handed me the bottle. “Drink something, you’re sweating like a freaking waterpark.”

“Can you be anymore disgusting?” 

“I could,” she smirked, scooting back to her own side, “but that would mean calling Sam and keeping you awake. You look like death, and not having slept in a million years, so I won’t do that to you.”

She tucked herself under the blankets, reached out and grabbed a pillow from the floor, and curled up with it, closing her eyes.

“Thank you,” I managed out a whisper, and her typical response was to wave it off, before slowly falling back into a light sleep.

I clicked off the light, sending the room back into darkness.

I stood in the middle of Bourbon Street… alone, surrounded by faceless crowds of bodies, no noise except the sound of my own heartbeat. No Sam, no Dean, no Jai, but I knew this memory. It was where we were separated, Sam and Jai having been swept up with the crowd, but where was Dean?

I moved against the current of people, heading for the Biscuit Palace, needing to make sure they were safe. The more I pushed, though, the larger the crowd became until I had no choice but to duck off the street and into a pub. 

It wasn’t a pub inside. It was my house. And someone was screaming! Not that little girl, not yet, but I knew this scene.

The screams dulled the sound of my heartbeat, of the rhythmic in and out of my own breathing, and I know I yelled. I called for my mother, for my father, but there was nothing but the terrible haunting screams of my mother. 

I moved up through the porch, pushing open the heavy outside door, and slipped in. In the middle of the room stood the dog, coated in red, his fur matted with it, and at the counter stood my mother, her back to me, a long carving knife in her hands as blood poured down from the graphite counter. 

I turned in the room, eyeing over the rest of it, the drawings on the fridge, the cow cookie jar on the counter. It was all different because of the color. There was something wrong with the color.

And that’s when I realized it.

There was blood everywhere. 

Every inch of the kitchen seemed to be covered in the splatter of drying liquid, some old and brown, others bright red, but it streaked down the walls. I turned to her, as she moved away from the sink, towards the archway for the living room, and followed her progress until I stopped, and stared.

She was there, the little girl, hair drenched with blood, clothes soaked with it, the same white nightgown that Jai had been wearing in the cell covered in blood. I stepped back, wanting nothing more than to run, but she  _ screamed _ , high-pitched and painful, and as I fell to my knees I watched her eyes open, not having realized they were closed, to see them glow a bright yellow.

Her lips parted for a second scream, but all I remembered was how she seemed to fly at me, mouth open, teeth bared, and suddenly there was darkness.

And a voice.

“I don’t give two shits what you think you  _ need _ to do under your brother’s orders, Castiel. You find out what the fuck is wrong with her and you fix it!” Jai’s demanding voice brought me out of the darkness, only opening my eyes to see her back to me, and Cas’ wide blue ones locked right on mine. She slowly turned, drew in a deep breath, and let it out with a scowl. “Fuck.”


	4. Jai

**Jai**

I woke with a start, something that usually happened when I had nightmares, but this time, it wasn’t me. The little whines that woke me from a nearly pleasant dream of disposing of a demon -- my only way of using my gift now-a-days -- had me sitting up, curious, because while Gwen wasn’t a quiet sleeper, she’d only started making pained sounds in the last week.

It was the whole “she’s going to die” thing that had me up and off the bed and around it to her side, especially when she started shaking, and told her  _ Dad  _ she couldn’t do it. Her  _ DAD _ ! I grabbed her by the arms, brushed a hand down her face because that was something that usually always had her waking up, and watched her freak out instead.

“Gwen,” I patted her on the cheek, turning the light on beside me. Her eyes were tightly closed and that was definitely not good. “Hey, Gwen, time to wake up.”

Nothing, not even an acknowledgement that I was sitting there.

“Come on, Gwen, snap out of it.” I patted a little harder, knew that was the wrong thing to do in this situation but hell, she was actually scaring the shit out of me and that’s when I knew I had to do it. Digging deep, I took in a breath, and let the murky black coat my eyes, just for one word. “Gwen!” 

Instantly her eyes opened, but squinted as the light from the table lamp blinded her. Served her right, making me actually fear for her life. I blinked away the demon as she fluttered her lids at me a couple times, trying to clear the haze while I leaned over her. I let that concern fade and huffed at her in irritation. 

“Dude, that wasn’t exactly the sounds I expected when you dreamed of Cas.”

“I’m fine,” she scowled, pushing my hand from the side of her face where I was touching. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she might have a weird handprint there for a bit but instead scoffed, slipped from the bed and headed towards the mini-fridge, grabbing with a bottle of water.

“Oh, yeah, because talking about your dad and Cas in the same dream makes everything fine.” I plunked down on the edge of the bed again, looking over the tired way she scanned the room, the evidence of a week's worth of bad nights starting to show under her eyes, and handed her the bottle. “Drink something, you’re sweating like a freaking waterpark.”

Maybe a shower would do her some good, maybe not, but she was bound to get dehydrated if she kept this up, however she looked at me like I had said that I had boudoir pictures of Sam that I could show her.

“Can you be anymore disgusting?” 

Exactly the reaction I was looking for. Not really, but it was something.

“I could,” I smirked, getting up to move to the other side of the bed. There were just some rituals you couldn’t ignore, and getting up on the wrong side of the bed was just as bad as getting in on the wrong side, so I threw back the blankets and looked at her over her shoulder, “but that would mean calling Sam and keeping you awake. You look like death, and not having slept in a million years, so I won’t do that to you.”

I slipped onto the sheets, grabbed the blankets and tucked myself deep into the still warm spot that I managed to save. However, that left me about three pillows short, and I scooted to the end, eyes locked on hers, reached out blindly behind me and grabbed a pillow from the floor, before yanking it back to curl up with it, closing my eyes.

“Thank you,” I heard her whisper, but waved it off. 

Hearing, more than seeing -- since I was  _ in _ the covers -- as the light turned off, I took a deep breath and brought the blankets down to look around the room. I guess I wasn’t the only one affected by the strange feeling surrounding Crater Lake and its closest towns, but I also knew this had started just about the time we had gotten the call to come up.

Once I knew she was asleep, or as deep into it as she could get, I got up, grabbed the phone and headed towards the bathroom. This shouldn’t take long, but she didn’t need to hear it, or get woken by it, and I had a plan for that too.

Sitting on the toilet, I pulled my feet up, grabbed a towel and wrapped it around me. These motel bathrooms were never properly insulated, or heated, and it was always colder than I liked. Finally settled, I opened the phone and looked through my contacts. It had been a while since we talked, just the two of us, and while that might make this a little strange, I still had to do it.

It rang twice.

_ “Hello.” _ Stoic, deep, and never any less irritated, Castiel’s voice rang over the line.  _ “No one has time for prank calls. I’m a very busy man.” _

“Cas,” I smirked, holding back a laugh, because Cas being busy was an understatement.

_ “Jai?” _ Wow, the sound of actual surprise.  _ “Why are you calling?” _

“Can’t a girl talk to her brother’s SO?”

_ “I don’t know what an SO is.” _ I could almost see the way his brows pulled together trying to figure that one out, but he didn’t deny the brother part, so at least he got that.

“Significant other,” I offered, not wanting him to dwell on it. “Listen, something’s come up. We need to talk about Gwen.”

_ “Is she hurt?” _

“No, but there’s definitely something _wrong_. She’s dreaming.”

_ “Most humans do that.” _

“But I don’t think it’s staying  _ in _ her dreams.”

_ “Elaborate, please.” _

“Cas, I think whatever she’s dreaming about is bad and it’s bleeding into this case.”

There was silence on the line for a moment, and then, _ “I’ll be right over.” _

When the line went dead, I moved out of the bathroom, and over to sit at the table by the window. I didn’t have to wait long for the angel to appear, just a few minutes actually, long enough to slip on the sleep pants I usually kicked off before getting under the covers and to slip on one of the flannels I had stolen from Sam. 

When he popped into existence, which always got my nerves fired up, he just stood there, staring at her in bed.

“Cas,” I whispered, but was instantly silenced when he turned and looked at me, tapping on his temple. I hated this part.  _ “You know I hate this freaky mind-meld stuff.” _

_ “We can’t wake her up yet.” _ He had a point, so I just rolled my eyes at him.

_ “Fine, but this freaks me out.” _

_ “Tell me what’s going on.”  _ He sat down on the chair across from me, eyes still on the bed as if he could see it clearly in the dark.

_ “She’s having nightmares.” _

_ “And this is upsetting how?” _

_ “Cas, you know better than anyone that she doesn’t dream, and if she does, she doesn’t remember or react like this to them. She’s had two already tonight. She’ll deny it but I woke up the first time too.” _

_ “Do you know what they're about?” _

_ “Her mom, I think.”  _ and that was a heavy admission, one that made my heart break. Gwen didn’t remember much about her mom, hell, she barely remembered anything before she lost her.  _ “She was saying something about her dying, and that she couldn’t do something her dad was asking her to do.” _

_ “I was afraid of this.” _

_ “Wait, you know what’s going on, you know what she’s dreaming about?” _

_ “When we were in Portland,  _ _ Mynoghra unlocked memories that had been tucked away for years, ones I personally blocked.” _

_ “About her mother.” _

_ “About her mother’s death and what she had become.” _

_ “Which was?” _

_ “Not something that needs to be addressed at the moment.” _

_ “You’re kidding right? Of course it needs to be addressed, Cas, she’s fighting for sleep, for sanity. She’s having auditory hallucinations while wide fucking awake. I think a big part of easing this would be “addressing” the situation, don’t you think?” _

_ “Jai, I…”  _ The pause was what got me.

_ “What the hell is Gabe making you do?”  _ I stood up, shook my head and moved towards him, leaning down into his space.  _ “What is so important to your brother that you would just wing away and not help me to help her. Come on, Cas, this is bullshit.” _

_ “Jai, this is important.” _

_ “More important than her?” _

_ “You know that’s a lie.” _

_ “Then do something.” _

_ “I have orders from my brother that need to be followed.” _

And that just sealed it. I stepped back, black eyes and anger, as he rose, sights locked on the woman behind me but I was too furious to care what he was looking at, because at the moment I just wanted to hit him square in his perfect angel jaw.

“I don’t give two shits what you think you  _ need _ to do under your brother’s orders, Castiel. You find out what the fuck is wrong with her and you fix it!” His eyes flickered down to me, and he swallowed like he had just been caught doing something wrong. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes for just a second to clear the haze of my other half and slowly turned to look over my shoulder, drawing in a deep breath as her dark eyes, even in the dim light of the room, stared right out at me, and I let it out with a scowl. “Fuck.”

“Cas?” Her focus shifted to the man behind me before he made his way quickly around and sat down on the bed beside her. I took that moment to calm myself, knowing she was distracted and quickly slipped on my boots, grabbed my coat and slipped out the back door. 

The morning air was crisp and the sun had just started to breach the horizon when the phone in my pocket vibrated. I rolled my eyes, hoping it wasn’t who I thought it might be, and let out a sigh of relief when I found out it was just Bobby.

I accepted and slowly moved it to my ear. “Morning, old man.”

_ “Something up with you, girl?” _ He snipped, a bit of worry in his voice.

“Well, it’s five am, I haven’t had coffee yet, and you’re calling… which means it’s seven there and you just had the inclination to call. So, what’s up?”

_ “Got a check-in from the Wessons…” _

“Oh, yay.”

_ “You two are confusing the hell out of those kids.” _

“Bobby, seriously, this case is all around f-ed up, there’s no confusing them when we’re the ones confused. The whole place is beacon central.”

_ “I know, and I explained that to them, but Chris is a little…” _

“Rough?” I laughed, but he took my meaning wrong and cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Oh, come on, I didn’t mean it that way. I meant he took this hard, and the vic is his researcher. That’s making it personal, don’t you think?”

_ “We all have our reasons.” _

“Sure, that’s the reason for it.” I rubbed my forehead, trying to stem off the headache that the lack of sleep was giving me, that and the low amount of caffeine in my bloodstream. “Listen, for what it’s worth, their fears are valid, but we’re not even sure what we’re dealing with yet. There’s two things  _ right now _ that come off as plausible, but in all reality, it could be huge.”

_ “What two things?” _

“Wil-o’ wisps, and mimics.” I frowned because no matter how much I thought about it, something about those two just didn’t sit right, but it was really all I got. “I know. I know.” I bit down on my lip at his silence. “Sounds a bit far-fetched, but there’s plausible evidence leaning in both directions, the problem is also the  _ lack _ of evidence.”

_ “And that’s what confused the boy.” _

“Yeah, good for him.”

_ “Jai…” _

“No, no, I get it, but seriously, Uncle B, there is something really wrong with this place.”

_ “Did you do the test?” _

“Yeah, and what I got was a big, fat _ you’re fucked _ .” I shrugged, standing from the stairs as I moved out into the small backyard. “I mean it blankets this whole place. And the feeling... it’s just too much.”

_ “Feeling?” _

“Yeah, itchy, uncomfortable, ready to run.” I shook my head. “Ready to rip it apart.”

_ “If you think you’re gonna fall off the wagon, you need to leave.” _

“It’s not even a wagon,” I whispered, turning to look at the view in the distance, “it’s a mountain.”

_ “Do you need help? Should I send the boys?” _

“And put more people in the grip of this place, no thanks. We’ve got this handled, just got to figure out where to start.”

_ “Okay, but you need to check in.” _

He was such a softie, and I tried to keep the smile from my voice. “You got it. I gotta go in and wake up the queen. It’s time for breakfast.”

_ “You just said it was five, why don’t you catch a few more hours, I’m sure things will wait for you to get the rest you need.” _

“God, you’re such a pushy old thing, aren’t you?” I teased and heard him grumble. “Love you, Pops.”

_ “Yeah, yeah,”  _ and he hung up the phone. 

I stared down at it for a moment, before shaking my head. “Hmm,” was all I said before I tucked it away.

When I walked into the room, Gwen was sitting at the table, laptop out, coffee maker gurgling and I stopped dead after kicking my boots off. She glanced up from the screen and nodded in my direction as I moved towards the coffee, not saying a word until I was settled up by the headboard of the bed -- the TV on low -- as the news came on.

“So, what’s the plan?” She whispered, high enough for me to hear her, but low enough that I knew she was trying to hide the emotions in her voice.

“According to Bobby,” I shrugged, “a few more hours of sleep, and breakfast.”

She paused in her typing, “I could eat.”

“I’m surprised.” This got her to really look at me. “I usually can’t eat until way after with nightmares, the gore is still too fresh.”

“That’s because you like strawberries on your pancakes.” She scoffed, but there was a smile under it, and she wasn’t wrong, so I just shrugged it off and enjoyed the organic coffee. “So, are you hungry?”

“Like you said,” my eyes glued to the TV, “I could eat.” But I slowly sat forward. “Would you look at that?”

“What?” She got up, moved to the edge of the bed and sat down. There, on screen, was our missing ranger. “Maybe he tasted bad.”

“Maybe,” I cocked my head a little to the side and looked at the man behind him. Chris was looking anywhere but the camera and that really did make me smile. “Or maybe our hunters were out after dark.”

“You think Chris found him?” 

I scooted off the bed, eyes still on the TV as I picked up the phone I had placed on the dresser beside it. “No, I think it spit him back out.”

“You know, there have been rescues before, not everyone who’s gone missing stays missing.”

“Look at that guy, Gwen, really look.” And she did, leaning forward as I sat beside her. I knew the minute she caught it. 

“His eyes,” she whispered, turning to me. “How the hell did you notice his eyes from way back there?”

It wasn’t a big deal, but I knew from the picture in the office that this guy had two brown eyes, however now, he had one bright blue one. “They don’t change like that unless something really bad happens, or he’s…”

“Possessed.”

“Right, but I don’t think that’s the case.”

“Wait, you… who almost always thinks it’s demons, don’t think he’s possessed?”

“Nope, I think something happened in those woods that scared the holy hell out of him.” I drew up Chris’ contact information on the phone and typed out a simple message.  _ “How?” _ and sent it along. “What we need is to figure out what, and why.”

“Hmm, guess this means I have to get dressed.”

“I mean… you could go out but then we wouldn’t get anything accomplished. They’d be too busy looking at your boobs.” I smiled sarcastically at her and watched as she narrowed her eyes at me before huffing and moving from the bed. She grabbed her clothes, really I’m surprised she didn’t rip them, and stomped off into the bathroom. “Save me some water.”

“Screw you, Lancing!” wasn’t at all muffled through the door.

~~~~~ 

The Potbelly Café looked like it was going to be our new breakfast home for the duration of this hunt because we ended up sitting at the same table as the morning before ordering almost the same thing. Gwen had her spruced up biscuits and gravy, minus the conveyor belt French toast, but I chose a different path. A waffle with strawberries and whipped cream. Don’t even get me started on the comments that Gwen made about the whole blood red addiction, but just know they were there in full force.

The coffee, once again, was divine and it settled my nerves from my talk with Cas and the sudden shift in who had the worst nightmares. At least Gwen didn’t remember them, she had more of the residual feelings than the actual pictures her brain had come up with to deal with her trauma, but I kept what Cas told me to myself, and the fact that she mentioned her dad with -- more or less -- terror in her voice. It just seemed better to stay hidden for now.

“You’re slipping,” her calm demeanor caught me by surprise and pulled me away from the spot outside that I had focused on. There wasn’t anything out there, except our car, a small park, and a fire hydrant, so in truth, I was lost a bit in my own world.

I cleared my throat and sat up, pulling the refreshed coffee closer as I glanced around the table. She was the only one with a plate in front of her now, mine had somehow disappeared. “Sorry, long night.”

“I know, I was there.” She played with the gravy and the small piece of biscuit that remained. “So… Bobby?”

“Wanted to know why we weren’t playing nice with others,” I shrugged, reaching over to grab two packets of sugar. “Apparently Chris is a whiny little asshole.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I guess we confused them by the whole evidence/lack of thing that we had going on yesterday. You know, if their mom was some sort of real friend of Bobby’s, he sure as hell didn’t treat them like us or the boys. God, they need to be slapped.” I brought the cup up, took a sip, and let it sit a minute. “Needs more cream.”

“That coffee is paler than a ghost, why would it need more cream?” She was practically laughing at me as I shrugged it off and went for the small container. “Are your taste buds off?”

“No.” Dumping it in caused the liquid to swirl and I found myself drawn to the movement. “Hey,” I whispered, watching it go. “What about a vortex?”

“A vortex?” See, now she was confused, maybe I really was off. “Explain.”

“That weird feeling in the park, the off-kilter silence at the site, the misty apparition on the trail. All kinda in the same place, right? Maybe it’s a vortex, a space where everything converges but is sucked into something like…” I snapped my fingers, losing the words I was fighting for before I pointed at her, excited. “Like a black hole, just taking everything, including erasing Henry and his kid.”

“I think you're grasping at straws.”

“No.” I sighed, trying to understand my own feelings about the site. “Nope, I think that’s it. I mean,  _ nothing _ . What leaves nothing?”

She pushed her plate away, crossed her arms and leaned in closer to me. “Okay, smartass, what makes a vortex, and why?”

“Pfft, you’re the researcher, you tell me.” I winked, sitting back as her eyes went to the busy red and white paper placemat under her hands. Oh, look at that, she really was thinking about it.

“Well, a normal vortex occurs when two opposing currents meet.”

Huh, I didn’t really think she would go for it, but now I was interested. Sitting up in my seat, I moved to mimic her position.

“So what’s our currents here?” I questioned, but it wasn’t that I wanted her to answer, it was that I needed to think about it myself. “Besides the whole dormant volcano thing, we’ve got the literal exhaust hatch to hell.”

“Hmm, more than that, think telluric currents.”

“So, fault lines and telluric, sounds like a fun ride.” I tapped my fingers on the table, sat back, picked the coffee up again and stopped just before bringing it to my lips. “They’ve been active in the recent past, haven’t they? Reports of seismic activity should be something we can look up pretty easily.”

“Well, opposing currents would make it shaky at best, but I don’t think you’re looking at this the way you should. These might not have anything to do with the supernatural things going on here.”

“You’re right, they might not, but it does explain the signature.” I pinched my nose, stemming off a headache as the door opened several times, leaking in the strange feeling of heavy pressure from outside. The itch under my skin had faded being in the little place but now it was starting to creep up my legs. 

“What’s going on?” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Your other half is showing.”

I nodded, letting her know that I could feel it and closed my eyes, breathing in deeply before letting it out. I just had to relax for a second, push the feeling down before I blinked a few times and looked at her. 

“So?”

“So,” I sighed, emptying the cup before pushing it to the side, hoping for another miracle refill. It didn’t take long. “Everything supernatural leaves a signature,” I pulled the full cup back, grabbed two packets of sugar and shook them. “The length the signature hangs around depends on the creature itself, vampires last longer than werewolves, weres last longer than ghosts, blah, blah, you know all this, but this…” I tapped the table with my finger, “this is a beacon, a supernatural hub if you would, things come and go through it all the time, which is evident from the lore. The reason the signature covers the entire place is because it  _ is _ the entire place. Crater Lake is supernatural all in itself.”

“You lost me.”

“I know,” I couldn’t help the laugh. “Telluric currents, tectonic plates and fault lines, this all intersects here. Geographically, the Cascades are the result of the Juan De Fuca and the North American plates shifting under and around each other. This clash itself makes for a  _ lot  _ of energy, and what do we get when we have a lot of energy just hanging around?”

Gwen nodded, bit her lip, and shook her head. “Ghosts, demons, possessions,” she sighed before grabbing the tea pot that appeared on the table. “So what now?”

“So, we figure out who the hell is refilling our stuff without us noticing,” I snipped, glancing around. “Seriously, have you seen  _ anyone _ walk by?”

“I’m sure it’s just one of the women behind the counter.”

“I'm drinking haunted coffee,” I breathed out slowly, letting my head fall back to look at the drop ceiling. “God, do you think it’s contagious?” She laughed when I looked at her. “Seriously, you think it’s gonna follow me home?”

“I think if you keep drinking more of it, you’re going to end up with the shits, so why not quit while you’re ahead?” 

“Yeah, great that you think this is a joke, G, but it has to be haunted to be this good, and no one ever says a word, they just come by and refill it.”

“I’m pretty certain you’ve had enough.” She reached for my cup, to which I narrowed my eyes and glared at her. “Okay,” she raised her hands in defense, “okay, last one.”

“And then we go.”

“Definitely, we have a ranger to question, and camping gear to examine.”

“You always say the right stuff,” I winked, “gets me all hot and bothered.”

“That’s the coffee.” She pointed at the steam rising from the cup.

“Yeah, probably.”

~~~~~~

Standing on the outskirts of a campsite on the southwest corner of the park, Gwen and I surveyed the scene with quiet… well, disappointment comes to mind, I mean really there was  _ nothing _ there again. And we had expected it this time but apparently this was where the ranger had been found, sitting in the middle of the clearing with no knowledge of how he actually got there.

What was worse was…

”There’s no footprints leading in or out of the circle, except ours going in to retrieve him.” Chris was spouting off as I stared at the spot, head tilted to the side, finger twirling the hair that rested on my shoulder where my ponytail had slipped out, completely bored out of my mind. “Are you even listening to me, Lancing?”

“Oh, yeah, you drone on like my pops,” I huffed, and I could almost feel Gwen smirking beside me as I looked up at the Wesson man. “I learned how to pay attention and drown him out at the same time.”

He shook his head, handed Gwen the file folder, and walked away. 

“That wasn’t nice,” Gwen laughed.

“Never said I was nice,” I mumbled, squatting down just outside the line, still going over it with curiosity. “This doesn’t feel at all familiar to you?”

“No, should it?” She flipped through the detailed pages of his statement, medical exam, psych eval, all done while we were waiting on traffic to move in the middle of Chiloquin. I swear I didn’t know they had that many cars in that one place. I honestly thought it was a ghost town, with a post office and a really good cafe. 

“Feels vaguely like another hunt we did,” I drew in a breath, held it, and then slowly let it out, “if I could place it.”

“Don’t think too hard,” she deadpanned, “wouldn’t want to start a fire.”

“A fire.” I nodded, and stood quickly, moving around the site. 

“Where are you doing now?”

“I… Just… You know…” and waved at her as I made my way towards the furthest spot to the south of the site. 

“JAI!”

“It’s fine!” I yelled back, ducking behind a tree. I got as close as I could to the roots, dug the dirt and dead leaves away, and made my way around it, stopping only when I found what I was looking for. “Well, hello, beautiful.”

“Jai?” I glanced up, looking at Gwen standing above me and I froze, realizing I was down on my hands and knees, aforementioned hands covered in dirt, and I waved. “What the hell are you doing? Are you finally having a mental breakdown?”

“No…” I got up, brushed my hands on my pants, and stuffed them in my coat pocket. “I told you, something feels vaguely familiar and I think I know what it is.”

“So, out with it.”

“Okay,” I cleared my throat. “The triangle.”

“The…” she narrowed her eyes at me. “The triangle?”

“Yeah, like… you know…  _ the _ triangle? Our first case!”

“In 99’?”

“Yeah!”

“What about it?”

“So, the Beckens,” I stepped up to her, grabbed her gently by the arms and moved her around the tree. “The last couple they found, human sacrifice in Freetown, guts and gore, yada yada.”

“How do you remember this stuff?”

I looked up at her, wondering if she was the one going nuts. “I keep a journal,” before I moved onto my thoughts, “anyway, so… no tracks, no trails, no evidence. Remember.”

“Vaguely.” She paused, and I saw the moment she caught it. “Except the bodies.”

“Right, strapped to a tree, was all a whole bloody mess, but brush that aside because obviously our little Ranger is well and still breathing, there was something else there.”

“The sigils.” 

I moved her around the tree until she was where I had started digging and stopped, looking her in the eyes before I looked down, getting her to follow my line of vision. “The sigils.”

There, in the roots of the tree were the six sigils that had been carved into the very effective, very old claw-shaped blade found twenty feet from the tree, hiding under some brush, nowhere near the scene.

“It’s the same distance,” she whispered, looking from the tree roots to where the ranger was found. 

“For the most part,” I replied, standing straight as she crouched down to look at them. “No Jim to call this time.”

“No need,” she stood up, glanced around and sighed. “Come on, let’s go talk to our missing man.”

~~~~~

Ranger David Nelson was sitting on the hospital bed, still dressed in the johnny that he had been given for the examination, staring at us like we had two heads, but in his defense, if I was sitting in a circle with those sigils anywhere around me, I’d be a little uncertain too.

“So, Ranger Dave,” I started, smiling the best I could, and Gwen just blinked rapidly, her form of an eye roll, before she took a seat under the window. 

“It’s David,” he muttered quietly. 

“Okay, David,” I let the grin falter. “Tell me what you remember, and don’t worry if it makes you sound like a quack, we’ve basically heard it all.”

“Jai,” Gwen warned.

“What? I’m just saying that if he thinks he might have seen something that qualifies him as being completely mental, he’s not in bad company, I mean, the things we’ve…”

Gwen raised her hand, and I shut my mouth, it was just a thing, before she rose to her feet and made her way over, a clear sign that my interrogation was over, but I didn’t hide the smile as I plopped down in the seat. I hated talking to witnesses, and she knew it, besides she was a lot more convincing than I was. 

“What my partner is trying to ask,” and I really, really did try to hide that giggle. The word  _ partner _ was always weird. She glared at me as I looked away, hand waving for her to go on. “What we’d like is for you to just start at the beginning and tell us what you remember.”

“I was…” he paused, like he was about to tell us to go to hell, but instead it faded into something stranger, and that had me sitting up, moving closer. I could feel the way the demon shifted under my skin. 

“This might not be the best idea,” I managed to get out while reaching for Gwen’s hand to pull her closer, taking her away from him.

“Go on,” she encouraged and I wanted to kick her.

“I was out east of the drive, investigating some campfires, noise complaints, but when I stepped into the site, there weren’t any...”

“Fires?”

“People,” he spoke softly. “There weren’t any people.”

“Oh,” I sat back slowly, letting it sink in, “well, now.”

“I turned to go back to the truck and there was this voice, calling my name.” I slapped my hand against my forehead just waiting on what came next. “I knew it, him… I knew him. It was my dad calling my name, but he’s… he’s been dead for six years.”

“And you followed.” Gwen led, which only got me to roll my eyes.

Just under my breath, I answered for him. “Of course he followed.”

“Down the path towards the right, that leads along the mountain trail towards Whitebark. I called out, but he didn’t answer, swear I saw him just ahead but by the time I got to where I had seen him he was gone, and then I made it just past the overlook, and there was nothing.” He was shaking, lost in the memories, and okay, I could see him being shaken up, but the fact that his body honestly started vibrating enough to shake the bed, now I knew he was terrified.

Gwen reached out. 

“Don’t touch him,” I warned and she drew it back, looking curiously at me. “He’s got an aura, so, don’t.” She nodded, took a step away, and turned her eyes back on him. 

“Go on, Dave, keep going. Nothing here’s going to hurt you.”

“It came out of nowhere, the scream.”

“Like a dying elk?” I sat forward, suddenly feeling the sting of Gwen’s hit on my shoulder. I glared up at her using just my expressions to tell her that really did hurt. “Who was screaming, Dave?”

“My dad. It was like someone was ripping him apart.”

“What happened next?” Gwen whispered, calm, serene, like she was reading off some sort of meditation instructions and I was a bit scared, she was never that calm.

The shaking instantly stopped and he stared up at her. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?”

“Anything.”

“Okay, so you don’t know where you were?”

“No, I don’t remember anything but drawings.”

“Of?”

“I don’t know.”

This was going to get old quick.

“David,” Gwen moved, a gesture I stopped by taking her hand again. “These pictures, could you draw them?”

“I only… they were blurry.”

“So, you saw the drawings, then what?”

“I don’t know.”

I scratched my head, running a hand down my face. The itching beneath my skin was growing and so was the frustration, but I couldn’t leave Gwen in the room with this guy. He has definitely been touched by something but there was no way to pinpoint what.

“Um, let’s try this.” Gwen’s eyes went to mine, which I replied to with a shrug and she drew in a breath. “David can you say  _ Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus _ ?”

He didn’t even flinch. In fact, he looked almost dumbfounded. “What?”

“Nothing,” Gwen waved it off, and part of me actually relaxed. “How about were there any noises that you might recognize?”

“Nothing,” he shook his head, “it was dark, the only reason I saw the pictures was because of the strange lights on the ceiling but it wasn’t bright enough to see anything else. There were no voices, no other sounds, no way to tell how long I was there for. What day is it?”

“You were only gone for about thirty-six hours.” She sounded comforting and that was when I knew… she was a really good actor. “David, there’s one more thing that we want to do before we let you get some rest.”

“What?” God, he sounded terrified.

“Jai needs to touch your hand.”

I sat up straight because… “I’m sorry... what?”

“I don’t understand.” David stared at me confused, even as I stared at Gwen. 

“She just needs to check your pulse.” My eyes went wide, going right to the monitor beside him and the pulse-ox on his finger, before I glared at her. 

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I growled but she was having none of it. Dave was staring at me, and all I could give him was a slight smile.

“I guess?” He murmured it, so low that I barely heard it, and would have missed the permission if I wasn’t looking right at his face.

“Gwen?” 

“Jai,” she narrowed those eyes, “just do it.”

With a deep breath in through my nose, I huffed at her. “Fine.”

I rubbed my hands together, heating them up before I gently reached out, and wrapped my fingers around his wrist, tips going right for his pulse, and I waited. 

Nothing.

Okay, now I was curious. I slowly drew back, stared at him oddly and gave him a quick smile. “Thank you.”

Whatever Gwen said next to him was lost on me as I went over it all, the feelings in the room, the ones his emotions gave off, and the fact that there wasn’t an ounce of darkness in him, not that I could feel. So it didn’t come as a surprise when I found myself down the hall before I realized what I was doing.

I stopped dead, turned to look at her and furrowed my brow. “Why did you do that?”

“It was a hypothesis.” 

“A… ?” I blinked back the tipsy feelings and sighed. “Okay,” I nodded, because what the hell else was I going to say.

“That’s it?”

“Yeah,” I blinked, still weirded out, “I mean, for now, I guess. I just…” shrugged, I just shrugged. “I… I don’t know.”

“Well, I told Chris we’d meet him at the visitor’s center.” She stated pointedly and waited for my reply to which again, I shrugged, before she walked slowly ahead.

I glanced back at the room, watched as two nurses walked in, one with a clipboard, the other a BP machine before I followed her out.

What the actual hell was that?

~~~~~

The basement of the visitor’s center was empty, save for the camping gear that was set up down there, and by that I mean actually set up like we were about to go out on fun night of ghost stories and s'mores, but as I surveyed it, the only thing that I got was an eerie feeling. 

Chris stood across from me, arms crossed, legs a little bit apart, almost like Dean in thinking mode, except Chris wasn’t thinking, he was glaring. Sarah walked in an endless circle, had been for about fifteen minutes, more dizzying than Gwen on her good days of trying to figure shit out, but it was said woman herself that got me. 

Gwen was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside me, taking in everything, and literally drawing it out on a sketch pad. She had made notes of where the path into the woods would be, where she had heard the child’s voice -- which was why Chris was standing there more than annoyed -- and even had them set up a faux fire pit so that she could get the entire feel for the place. 

“Nothing,” I whispered, having gotten lost in the weird memories of Dave, but I felt the press of Gwen’s hand on my calf drawing me out of the strange mindset I had been in since I left his room. Glancing down, I looked straight into her worried eyes. “There’s nothing here.”

“No residual signatures?” 

I stuffed my hands in the pocket of my coat, a chill sweeping through me, much like it had since the moment we arrived, to hell with how warm it was. “Nothing, it’s all very… it’s like it doesn’t really exist, you know, like right on the edge of reality.”

“Hmm,” was all she came back with, “and what about David?” I shook my head at her. There were just some things I couldn’t explain. “You felt something when you touched him, didn’t you?”

“No,” I huffed and stepped away from the weird scene before me, getting another pass by Sarah, and Gwen’s hand dropped from my calf. “That’s the problem.”

“So, he wasn’t possessed?” 

With a very loud and dramatic sigh, I crossed my legs and sat down beside her. “He was empty.”

“Empty? I thought you said he had an aura.” 

I raised my hands and quickly dropped them, frowning. “That’s just it, he did. And the room was just lit up with every trigger I can imagine to wake up my other side, but there was nothing when I touched him.”

“Is he human?” 

“Completely.”

“Then I say that’s a win.” 

I placed my hands on the floor behind me, leaned back, and stared up at the ceiling, watching the way the lights reflected off the white drop ceiling tiles. We were low enough that you could see the lake from the large windows that took up the backside of the basement. 

This was more of a storage room with a full-sized door so the staff didn’t have to drag everything through the building to get it down there, but something about the way they moved got me to think.

“Hey, remember what he said, about the weird lights on the ceiling?”

“Vaguely,” she sighed, concentrating on the sketch pad before her, but didn’t bother to look at me. 

“What if they weren’t really lights?” That caught her attention as she turned her head out of the corner of my eye, just before she followed my line of sight. “What if they were reflections?”

Her eyes landed on the way the light shimmered across the ceiling for a moment before she quickly turned to Sarah. “Kill the lights.”

And the room went dark.

The only thing that lit it up were those dancing shimmers on the tiles, and we both leaned back enough to lay on the floor. 

“He said that was the only thing he saw.” She spoke softly, head next to mine.

“Yeah, no other light and the rest of the place was dark, no sounds.”

“What if the reason for the lack of sound was auditory deprivation?” 

I turned my head looking at her profile. “How the hell would you pull that off?”

Her eyes met mine. “What do they use in a sound deprivation tank?”

I blinked at her a couple times, turned back to the lights on the ceiling, and shook, just shook as my breathing quickened. “Water.”

I sat up quickly, got to my feet and moved towards the door, right through the make-shift camp ground before I found myself standing on the trail outside the building, looking right down on Crater Lake.

Chris was the one beside me, not that it mattered, I was used to Dean following me around, but he reached out to touch my shoulder.

“Please, don’t.” I asked softly, not a bit of bite in my voice because I wasn’t mad, I was fearful. Of all the things we’d come across, water was an element that I was terrified of. It wasn’t like fire, you couldn’t put it out, wasn’t like air, or wind, you couldn’t shut the door on it. Water was all powerful, and terrifying. “I appreciate it,” I peeked over at him, the concern on his face, “but it’s not necessary.”

“Sure, because everyone who suddenly looks like death is about to take them is perfectly fine.” He shrugged it off, a nonchalant move on his part as he tucked his hands into his jeans.

“Death is the least of my worries, they’re just a gigantic asshole sometimes.” The confused look on his face didn’t even get me to smile this time. “What do you know about this lake? I mean really know?”

“Seven-thousand years ago, a volcano erupted, the top caved, voila, Crater Lake.” He shrugged with a smile on his face, knowing he was irritating me. “Okay, well you have Wizard Island, which is supposedly the tip of it, and rises about 750 feet above the water, which by the way is almost two-thousand feet deep, and you have Phantom Ship Island.”

“That’s a real thing?” 

Chris actually smiled and nodded. “Definitely a real thing,” he turned his eyes to me, “I’ll show you, if you want.”

“Maybe later.”

“You really don’t like the water, do you?” He turned his back to the water, stepped to the rock wall, and leaned on it casually, keeping me in sight.

“No,” I gave him a smirk, “we don’t have the best of relationships.”

“Gotcha.” And suddenly, he was looking everywhere but me, nervously. “I’m sorry for calling Singer, I just wasn’t sure what the hell was going on.”

“You think you got me in trouble with him?” I grinned and shook my head. “He’s an ornery old coot, but he means well. Just wanted to check in and make sure we weren’t scaring you off. We do that sometimes.”

“It was so strange to have nothing.”

“I have a feeling we’re going to come up with more of that before this is through.” I stepped up beside him, leaned my lower arms on the wall and looked over the lake. It wasn’t as high up this time, or more to the point, there wasn’t a sheer drop to the crystal blue water so my fear of falling wasn’t kicking in. “I have a question for you, though.” He stared off at the building, before giving me a little nonverbal _ask away_ with his profile. “Were there any places that Dylan might have gone that you wouldn’t think of right off the bat? Sacred spots, maybe a _get away and_ _think_ place?”

He thought for a moment and in all honesty he really wasn’t a bad looking man, gorgeous even with the way that the morning light hit him before his tongue poked out and moistened his lips. At that, I had to look away. He reminded me of Sam at that point and, nope, wasn’t going there.

“There was one spot.” He turned to me, mimicked my position, even with how uncomfortable it must be for him, bent over like that. The wall was definitely shorter than the overlook. “I remember him taking me to this place. Called his “meditation cave”.”

“Right,” I hated it but it was a lead. “So, where is it?”

“Oh, you’re gonna hate it.” The tone in his voice had me staring at him, but all he did was raise his brows and point out towards the island that stood in the middle of that crystal blue water.

“Perfect,” I rolled my eyes. “Let’s go get the kids.” I stood straight and patted him on the shoulder. “Time for a field trip.”

With a deep breath, I walked away from him and back into the building. Good thing I left my hiking boots in the car.


	5. Gwen

**Gwen**

We were back where we started. 

The Cleetwood Cove Boat Dock wasn’t far from where we had found the campsite, and while everything in this little mystery seemed to point in that direction, I kept it to myself, for the most part. 

Jai visibly shook as she stepped onto the boat, her hands gripping the rails, but she said nothing, relayed nothing in her expressions. I knew this would blow up on her later. She sat quiet the whole time, looking out over the water, but it wasn’t until we were in range that the phone came out of her pocket and she started taking pictures. 

I sat in the back, eyes going over the crater walls, taking it all in as Sarah sat beside me, her voice more of a background noise while she talked to Chris about anything she could think of. Apparently, she didn’t like the boat either, or the water.

It wasn’t long before we were docking at Wizard Island, which was surprisingly empty for that time of year. They had halted boat tours to the island for the most part, so the lack of people was understandable. 

Chris got out first, helping his sister onto the dock. Jai went next, sea legs and all as she made her way towards land, and I followed up, pack on my back. As soon as she touched land, Jai doubled over, turning away from me and managed to expel most of the breakfast she had. That worried me. It wasn’t the boat, otherwise it would have happened on the water, so the fact that both feet were now set firmly on the island…

I handed her a bottle of water as she yanked the wad of napkins from her coat pocket. “Gonna live?”

“Yeah,” she huffed, kicking sand over her mess. She tipped the water bottle up, took a little in her mouth, swished, and spit it out, before setting her eyes on me. She wasn’t okay. “A little stronger than I thought it would be.”

“The signature?”

She laughed, turned away and looked up at the mountain. “Everything.” She shrugged her shoulders back, rolling them like she was ready for a fight, and centered herself. “Let’s go, staying still is making the vertigo worse.”

She didn’t hand me the bottle, just capped it and moved on. 

Chris stared at her as we moved, finally getting up the courage to step up beside her and I heard his voice whispering low. “You really don’t like water, do you?”

Jai shook her head, but there was a small smile on her face. She’d be okay.

Sarah was again beside me, words pouring out at a mile a minute with something that had to do with hunting, and while I was listening, I was also watching the woman in front of me, looking for triggers that would tell me just where we were and if we were getting close. She just kept moving.

It was the moment she stopped that had me wondering what was going on. The trail to the summit was only a mile, but almost three quarters of the way up, she paused, looked to the left and took a step off the path.

“Where are you going?” Chris grumbled, his hand reaching out for her, but Jai waved him off, following her instincts. His eyes locked on mine as I shrugged and followed, but kept a good length behind because you never knew what you would get if you got too close. “Seriously?”

“Where did you say the cave was that Dylan went to?” Chris finally caught up, actually went to move beyond me, but I reached out, pulled a soccer mom move and blocked his way.

“Up near the summit,” he answered quietly, voice still full of curiosity. “What is she doing?”

“Following her instincts.” It was that moment that she stopped, hand on her stomach and she doubled over again. This time she held it in, or had nothing left to give as she crouched down, swaying, but she turned her head towards me, then looked up at the incline to her right. “What is it?”

“Something strong,” she sighed, “really strong.”

I moved up beside her, looking where her eyes had landed, at a small opening in the rock wall. “Are you going to be able to handle it?”

“I didn’t come out here to this God-forsaken island to stand by and watch you have all the fun.” There was a tone in her voice that was just a little on this side of scary, but I knew it was more to do with the power the active volcano under our feet was causing than anything else. “It’s up there.”

“Hmm.” I nodded, moved away and headed right towards the opening, with Chris right beside me. 

“Gwen!” I turned at the sound of her voice, watching as she pushed herself to her feet. “Be careful.”

“What do you think in there?” 

She slowly shook her head, lips sealed tight enough to form a thin line and I knew it was serious. Whatever power this place held, she wasn’t about to screw around with it, so that made me think maybe this was a bad idea.

The opening was large enough for me to crawl into and still have room, but it was Jai that we had turned to, being that she was not only the smallest but the one with more experience with caves. 

She drew in a deep breath, huffed it out, and snatched the flashlight from my hand, clicking on the headlamp she wore. I could see the power fluctuating behind her eyes, dangerous and barely leashed.

“I hate you for this.” There wasn’t any bite to her words, just a hint of fear, but she closed her eyes and sighed. “So, what’s the plan besides sending me into the mouth of the beast.”

“A beast you have beaten more than once.”

“Not helping, G. I need a goal.”

“Get in as far as you can.” I handed her the walkie, which she snatched out of my hand. “And as soon as you find a place where we can stand, you let us know. We’ll be right in after you.”

“Sure,” she snipped, ran a hand down her face, and moved up to the entrance. “Oh, Cas, you better have your ears on, old friend.”

And then she disappeared into the darkness.

Five minutes, five long, long minutes before the radio in my hand crackled to life, and I slowly brought it up, waiting.

_ “You are not going to believe this shit,” _ was what came over the line.  _ “This is amazing, your little anthropologist heart is just going to explode. Come on in, the way is clear.” _

And then it went dead. 

I drew in a breath, put the pack in first and turned on the headlamp I wore, which was completely unnecessary with the glow sticks she managed to stick in crevices nearly every two feet to light our way. The small tunnel opened up to a large room with enough height that neither Chris nor I would hit our heads, and there Jai sat in the middle, cross legged on the floor, eyes to the ceiling… completely at ease. 

I inhaled deeply, felt the peace in the air and looked around. Chris stumbled in after me, Sarah moments behind him, and we were all dumbfounded. On every wall, and the ceiling, were pictographs, some in color, but otherwise untouched by time or humans. I moved in, placed my hand down on Jai’s shoulder and felt nothing. She wasn’t vibrating, she wasn’t shaking… she wasn’t tense. I had never seen her so relaxed.

“What do you feel?”

“Nothing,” she whispered, gaze still focused on the drawings in front of her, but she blinked, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “For the first time in days, I don’t feel a damn thing.”

“Okay,” I gave her shoulder a little squeeze before I patted it gently. “You sit here, let us take care of it.” She let out a shaky breath, swallowed, and nodded. I moved to stand by Chris as he made his way around the room. “So,” I whispered, grabbing my phone to document what we found. “Tell me what this means.”

“It means that Dylan wasn’t anywhere close to this place,” Chris whispered, reaching out to the wall before he stopped himself. “His cave is another quarter mile up the trail, and noticeable from it, but this…” He looked down at Jai, who hadn’t moved from her spot. “How did she find this?”

“Bobby says sometimes she can feel the Earth,” I shrugged, trying to give some sort of parental explanation, “almost like she can feel it turning.” That got the strangest look from the man. “Apparently, she has a knack for finding trouble. Hidden caves shouldn’t be so far out of the realm of possibilities, should it?”

“So you blindly follow her lead?” Sarah questioned, pacing as she had been all day.

“Never blindly,” I turned the flashlight on one strange pictograph, one that seemed to depict two spirits facing off. “You learn to trust your partner after years of working together. She likes to get into tight places now and again, but there’s just some looks you learn to read and know just when to follow them.”

“Yeah, makes sense,” Chris agreed quietly, hands on his hips.

“So, tell me this story.”

“The Klamath people believe that Crater Lake was sacred, kind of a crossroads between what they call the “ Spirit of Above”, named Skell.” I followed his eye-line as he pointed up to certain pictographs. “And the “Spirit of Below,” Llao.” The white outline of a fiery and dark figure loomed above the spot that Jai sat and I could almost see the story of the angel and demon that had played out so many times in our lives. “The story goes…” He pointed to a rather graphic pictograph of Llao ripping out Skell's heart from his chest. “After taking his heart, well, Skell retaliated by dismemberment. Skell threw Llao’s the body parts into the lake.”

“I swear I’ve heard this story before.” Jai grumbled below me as I stepped closer to her, waiting for that inevitable backlash from the days in down, but she just sighed.

Chris went on. “It’s said that hideous lake monsters swallowed down everything but Llao's head.”

“Which means the lake still holds Llao's spirit.” I narrowed my eyes on the way the story wrapped around the cave. The biggest part was the battle between them on the rock ceiling.

“Legend says, when stirred, he may brew up storm clouds. When angered, he may appear in the form of a giant crayfish that climbs up out of the lake, snatches people off of the rim of the crater that surrounds the lake, and drags them down into the water.”

“Or make them disappear from a campsite,” Jai’s voice whispered up to me as she slowly stood, walked straight ahead and stretched her fingers out to the strange pictograph of a number of villagers huddled around a fire. She turned quickly to me, her finger pointing at it. “What does this remind you of?”

“S'mores?” I replied, shrugging and she rolled her eyes at me.

“David,” she grumbled through clenched teeth. “Ranger Dave and his phantom campfire.”

“You know one of the ghost stories around here has to do with that,” Sarah spoke up for the first time. “They go out to investigate and then nothing.” 

“Okay, but there is absolutely no way I’m going to believe someone’s being dragged down here by a mutant lobster.” Jai stated sourly. “Even I have my limits.”

“Crayfish.” She glared at me. “Saltwater as opposed to fresh. There’s a difference.”

“Shuddup.” She grumbled, but it wasn’t in anger, just a natural response and I tried my best to hide a smirk. “The point of this is… most of these legends around the area probably stem from this one, right?”

“There’s also UFOs,” Chris grinned, getting in on it now, and I finally figured out what Jai had been doing sitting there the whole time. She moved quickly around the room, pointing at another pictograph of the cloud cover around the island. “Oh right. So, you’re telling me…”

“It’s a reflection,” she smiled smugly and raised her brows. “We’re at six-thousand feet, right? The fog bank comes down, surrounds the island and on clear, full moon nights…”

“The light reflects off what water is visible, shining it right up onto the bottom of the bank…” I continued.

  
“Causing a shimmering effect, or depending on the intensity…”

“Lights. Unidentified moving lights.” I whispered, shaking my head. 

“Okay, so explain the lake monster?” Chris crossed his arms.

“Dude, the damn thing is clear blue straight to the bottom, unless there’s a crap-ton of sediment on the bottom of the lake and this thing is buried under a rock, you would think someone would see a giant crustacean crawling around eating what little fish there is sometime in the last five decades.” I had to agree with her, she made valid points. 

“And what sediment there is came from the volcano itself.” I added, and watched Chris take it all in. He seemed impressed but could go head to head with Dean on the whole  _ hiding his emotions _ deal, not letting Jai see that what knowledge she was spitting out was definitely getting a rise out of him. 

“Okay. “ He nodded, stepping away from the wall. “Explain the missing persons.”

“I can’t do that yet.” Her voice seemed to tremble at the request, eyes going right to mine. “I  _ can _ say that wherever your buddy is, he’s not  _ in _ the lake.”

“What she means is that there might be some truth to the legend, but there is not a giant crayfish dragging them down,” I butted in. “But crossing off the “spirit” of this Llao might be a mistake.”

“You’re serious?” Chris laughed.

“Obviously there’s no bodies in the water, but we work… live with the supernatural every day. It’s literally our jobs to take care of it, hunt it… understand it.” I watched as Jai moved to take pictures, scanning the cave now that she had time to acclimate, before I turned back to Chris. “It’s possible that this thing is using similar powers -- like a mimic -- to draw people not to the water but somewhere into the woods.”

“There’s something else that gets me,” Jai spoke up, bringing the camera down, eyes going straight to one pictograph, memorizing it from the concentrated look in her eyes. “Everything seems to point to Cleetwood Cove.” This time she did turn, but didn’t focus on any one of us. “Dylan’s campsite, the disappearances over the years, even with the southwest ones, the boat dock… The same feeling of nothing.”

“Feeling of nothing? You mean the evidence?” Sarah questioned.

“No,” she did focus this time, right on Sarah. “I mean the feeling.”

“Everything has a vibration,” I took over, “a signature, a presence. Except at that campsite, and here.”

“So?” Chris was curious now, you could see it in his eyes.

“So,” Jai smiled. “That means there’s a path.”

“How the hell are we going to find a path on an island?” 

“You go to the top.” She winked, grabbed her stuff and made off to the exit. As soon as her feet disappeared into the orange glow of the emergency lights, Chris turned to me a little annoyed.

“I’m going to guess it’s time to go?” 

“She keeps life interesting.” I grinned, moving to follow her. “Last one out grabs the lights.”

Christ gave me a frown, and a two finger salute before I disappeared into the tunnel, emerging out the other side in time to see Jai catching her breath, doubled over with the water bottle shaking in her hand.

I kept my distance in case the sympathetic gag reflex kicked in, but she waved her hand behind her as she slowly straightened. “I’m good,” she cleared her throat, “I’m good.”

“You sure?” 

She wiped her face again with the napkins, took a swig of the water, swished, and spit, before nodding. “I’d be ten times fucking better if we could just solve this case and get the hell out of here.”

“Here.” I rummaged through the bag and dug out a trail bar, before stepping closer to hand it over. “I know you probably don’t want to, but it only gets steeper from here.”

“Yeah, yeah, Boss.” She snatched it out of my hand, “I know how this goes.” She moved towards a boulder big enough to hold her up and sat down on it. “Giant crayfish? Really?”

“We all have our go-to monsters.”

“So, does that make it a crypto?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“Hmm,” she bit into the lemon bar. “Would be kinda interesting to see if Loren let you hang a twenty-foot crayfish from the ceiling at the museum.”

And as much as I would love that… “No.”

“Well, he’s missing out… we could accompany it with a few giant sticks of butter.”

“You’re just wrong in the head, aren’t you?”

“It’s been said,” she shrugged, finished the bar, and crinkled the wrapper. “Did they get stuck?”

“No, they’re coming, but you do have the habit of getting those lights in there pretty good.”

“True.”

She finally got to her feet just as Sarah cleared the entrance with Chris not far behind. Jai slowly rose, testing out her legs, before she rolled her shoulders, and set her sights on the summit. It was the concern on Chris’ face that got to me, as if he really did understand what she was going through but he said nothing as she grabbed my bag from the ground beside my feet and started off up the trail.

“She’s weird,” Sarah huffed as she went by, lights in hand to catch up with the hunter and the bag. 

Chris fell in step with me and we began the ascent to the top in relative quiet but there was just something on my mind.

“What’s your tribe?” And the way he stiffened told me that my hunch was right. It took a moment for him to relax but he did so visibly, and cleared his throat.

“My father was Klamath,” he whispered softly, “but we don’t speak much of it with Sarah, she has this whole  _ not defined by my heritage  _ thing going, has since she was about five.”

“That’s how you know the legend so well.” 

“When you grow up with a thing, you learn about it, so you don’t become a victim to it.” Chris jammed his hands in the pockets of his coat just as the trail started to grow steep. “A seven-hundred foot elevation gain, you sure she can handle it after… you know?”

“She’s tougher than she looks,” I laughed but it didn’t erase the look on his face. “Trust me, she’s been through worse.”

“We all have in this business.” I could feel his eyes on me as we moved, Sarah and Jai up ahead yapping away as they moved, like this wasn’t making them the least bit out of breath. “How about you? What’s your tribe?”

“You mean why am I so tall?” I chuckled. It was an unusual question, not at all what I got from anyone else. A pale-skinned woman of color, it was… nice to be asked. “My mom is… was a short Italian woman, and my father…” I gestured to my height and shrugged. “He was a hunter.”

“I got it.” He smiled and shook his head. “Parents are strange creatures.”

“That they are.” 

We fell into silence as we made our way to the five-hundred-foot wide crater at the top of the summit, but heard the whoops and hollers of Jai as she finally reached the summit. She wasn’t quiet about it but I could hear the moment she slipped on the loose gravel, and rolled my eyes, since it was quickly followed by a round of loud laughter. 

“How is she not dead yet?” Chris scoffed, mostly talking to himself but suddenly looked at me wide-eyed.

“Oh, she’s experienced that before.” I smirked and watched him shake his head. 

We rounded the corner to see Sarah sitting on a fallen log, catching her breath and Jai standing at the edge of the cauldron looking over into its ninety-foot depths. When I walked up beside her, she seemed flush and steady, not at all rattled by how close she was to the edge.

“What do you feel?”

Her blue eyes came up to me and she smiled as big as she could. “Nothing. This is so weird.”

“Okay, so where are we on your  _ path _ ?” 

She turned slowly, stepped away from the edge and narrowed her eyes at the surrounding view, like that might give her super-vision or something akin to it before she looked up at the sun, then turned that focus on me. 

“Well, obviously we’re looking east to the cove here,” she turned and faced the rim. “But, here…” she took five steps around and stared due west. “This is where most of the pictos were centered.”

“You remember that?” Chris questioned, sitting down next to his sister. 

Jai pointed at herself. “Driver.” As if that explained everything before she started moving again, this time making her way around the edge of the cauldron. I followed because curiosity was always my thing. “So, if we go by the shoreline painted on the walls, we get this whole little link to the outside world. This…” She stopped dead and looked down at her feet. “This is where the fires of Llao were on the ceiling, southerly.” 

“So, that,” I pointed straight ahead, “would be where Skell’s “above” would be located.”

“Right,” she clipped and moved once again to the eastern side of the edge, and turned to face out at the wide expanse of water. “This is east.”

“And that gets us?”

“A whole lot of water.”

I rolled my eyes at her, wanting to be upset at her banter, but there was just this look on her face, which got me thinking. “And?”

She pursed her lips, scratched at her cheek, and narrowed her eyes again. “Nothing.”

“A path.” I could see it in the way she looked, there was nothing going on with her, the demon was quiet, the feeling she had been bombarded with outside the cave was gone and she was calm. “Where’s it point?”

Slowly, she raised her hand, finger extended, and pointed towards the cove. “There.”

I stepped behind her as she lowered her arm, unzipped the pocket on the bag, and yanked out a pair of binoculars, ones that we always had packed for this very purpose, before I stood behind her, mimicking her position and watched the way she raised her hand again. Following her line of sight and the direction she held her hand in, I focused the binoculars onto one specific spot.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” I whispered, which got her to turn swiftly in my direction. 

“No,” she shook her head, “no, no. There will be no kidding here. None! You know I hate when you say stuff like that.” She snatched them from my hands and turned her focus on the eastern rim and I knew the moment she saw it. “Oh, fuck me! Really?”

What she was looking at was one of the small waterfalls that you could only see on a boat tour, and only get to if you were brave enough to climb over the side of the rim and make your way down, but at the moment, it wasn’t the falls that she was looking at.

“Oh, for the love of God, please tell me we are not going in there.” She sighed, her shoulders slumped and she turned to look at me. Her reaction is what had Chris beside me, hand extended to her, fingers doing this whole  _ hand it over _ movement and she did, she dropped those binoculars right into his palm. “Christ!”

And she stomped away, like she wanted to bring the volcano back to life just to have it swallow her whole.

Chris raised them up, placed them to his eyes and looked out. “Is that a cave?”

“Yes, it’s an actual cave hidden behind a waterfall.”

“We have no record of it.” The confusion in his voice was evident, but it was also mixed with the excitement of a new discovery.

“Well, your ranger did say that this year has been a little strange as far as climate?” 

“Yeah, there’s been a…” he stopped, eyes wide, and slowly turned to face me. “There’s been a drought. Even the lake levels have fallen, so…”

“Less water over the falls, which means a clearer view of the entrance.”

There was a moment of hesitation in his eyes before his gaze went to his sister. “Sarah’s gonna freak.”

“She can keep Jai company.” I reached out, patting him on the shoulder because the usually calm one seemed a little frazzled. “Come on, let’s go check it out.”

The hike back down to the docks was strenuous, descending that high of an elevation took more time then getting up, but while it mostly had to do with the loose rock, it was made even more so by the bitching and complaining of the smaller hunter in the middle of the group. She wasn’t as afraid of water as she was of the height, and it proved -- as we finally made the boat to get out there -- to be higher than she liked.

The boat held its position in the wake of the water rocking it, as the four of us took in the falls, the rocks around it, and the thirty-five foot climb from the surface of the water to get up there.

“Jesus, I hate this place.” Jai whispered, which made me smile, because as much as she hated it, I could see the plan forming in her eyes. “We need a winch, a long… very long rope, and some climbing gear.”

“We need to wait.” I added, which got a glower from her as she placed her hands on her hips. “The sun’s going to fade fast in the next hour and a half, not nearly enough time to get back out here with the amount of boats and people we need to get in the cave let alone back out.”

“She has a point,” Chris nodded, crossing his arms as he stood, legs apart, balanced as if this was second nature. “We have extraction gear at the station, harnesses, rope,” he looked right at Jai, “winches, and some pretty good sized half-tons that won’t have a problem lifting your bony ass to the mouth.”

“Screw you, Wesson.” She snipped, but it was out of habit, not hate and I held back a laugh. “Okay, so let’s get the hell off this lake and back to where we need to be. I’m fucking freezing!”

“You’re always freezing,” I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah, well, this time it isn’t from the cold.” She sat down on one of the plush cushioned seats and waved at the young ranger at the steering wheel. “Home, James.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He grinned. She was such a fucking flirt. 

I sat down beside her, staring at her profile as she kept her eyes locked on the cave. “Thoughts.”

“Not right now.” It wasn’t that she didn’t have any, it was that she didn’t want to  _ discuss _ any and I understood, sitting back to enjoy the ride to the Cleetwood Cove dock. The walk up was going to be stressful enough, and we didn’t need to bring the Wessons in on any of Jai’s theories just yet.

~~~~~

The flurry of action at the station when we arrived definitely told a story. Chris was in deeper with this park than I originally thought. One call from the truck as we followed him back along the rim had sent them into action. The sun was setting and it was a race to get everything packed and ready for an early morning cave diving experience that I wasn’t nearly as ready for as I thought.

Jai was in a constant buzz, following the men around as they packed packs, checking ropes and carabiners like she had any clue as to what she was doing, or so Chris thought, but I knew better. 

Strangely enough, this wasn’t our first rodeo with things like this and while we usually went in guns blazing, we had our fair share of being lowered down into caverns and scrambling to ascend to the top of something just as steep without the use of ropes to get away. This time though, it involved something neither of us were fond of. 

Icy cold water.

The general temperature of Crater lake ran about fifty to sixty on the surface -- on good days -- but the further down you got, the more the prospect of hypothermia set in and while not going into detail… that would be something I’d rather not experience again.

“Oh! No!” came the sound of her frustrated voice as she moved towards a young man who hadn’t done much of anything except wrap up a length of static rope. “That’s not… here, give it to me.”

_ “Mommy?” _ I spun at the sound of the voice, standing on the edge of the chaos, and turned towards the darkening woods. The sun shined through with the last rays of light in the thickened forest, but there was nothing but shadows.  _ “Mommy?” _

I swallowed hard, heart beating painfully in my chest, and took a step closer to the edge of the light. It flickered once, the shadows not thirty feet from me, long curly black hair hanging wet over the face of some small child, her white nightgown soaked with dark red blood, and there was a bear in her hand, ripped at the neck hanging on barely by a few threads. 

“Hell…” I cleared my throat. “Hello?”

Fuck, I just walked into the worst horror movie imaginable, because who says  _ hello _ to what is obviously a ghost.

“Jai?” I whispered without looking back, noticing that all the noise around me had stopped. The apparition flickered again but didn’t move any closer, and I drew in a deep breath through my nose. “It’s not real. She’s not real.”

“What are you going on about?” Her annoyed voice broke the trance, and light seemed to filter back into the world. The girl was gone, the trees were brighter. It wasn’t as far past sunset as I thought and out of the corner of my eye, Jai stepped up beside me, arms crossed, scowl on her face as her frustrated sigh made her shoulders rise, then fall quickly. “You’re not supposed to engage, first rule of hunting.”

“Did you see her?” It came out a little shakier than I thought it would but I felt her hand press against the spot between my shoulder blades and watched her shake her head. 

“No, but I felt it.” Her fingers patted gently. “Come on,” and that was said with the tone of just another day. “We’re almost done. Stop fucking around with the wilos.”

“Do you think it was one?” I followed slowly, hoping to shake the strange feeling of still being watched.

“Do you think it was a twenty-foot crayfish?” Her brow went up as she hopped onto the tailgate of the winch truck, and I rolled my eyes. “Then no, I didn’t think it was one. I do, however, think you’re more open than you believe.”

“Open?”

“Yeah, you know, third-eye and all that happy jazz.” She dug into the bag beside her -- her bag -- and pulled out a candy bar. “You’ve been having nightmares, something in your repressed memories has come to the surface, so you’ve opened some door in your head that is letting whatever’s out there,” she tapped her forehead, “in here. This place…” 

She didn’t even need to finish that sentence before she turned her eyes to the lake to our left. 

“Yeah, I know.” I nodded, and found a spot on the other side of her, eyes searching the darkening surface for any signs of life. “So what now?”

She shrugged, bit the bar again and chewed, eyes shifting to the crew of men and women that were still double checking equipment. “I could eat.”

“Hmm, me too.” Even though I had absolutely  _ no _ appetite after that. She smirked at me, chocolate on the edge of her lips and jumped down. 

“Let’s go then, I’m bored.” She snatched the bag up, tossed the strap over one shoulder, and walked slowly past Chris, hand going along his back, dragging his attention from the conversation to watch her disappear into the building. 

I shook my head and followed, nodding at him as I passed, which got a small wave of his fingers before he turned back to the people around him.

~~~~~

Annie’s Creek Restaurant and Gift Shop seemed to be everything Jai ever wanted in life, including the whole cafeteria-style ordering system they had for food. She was giddy as she ordered a cheeseburger, went through line and paid for it, a soda, and my meal, and as we sat down to wait for it, her eyes went everywhere, sparkling with childlike wonder and all I could do was scoff.

“What?” She laughed the word out. “This place is great. Totally taking pics for Dean.”

“For a man you hate so much…” I stated, hoping to grab her attention but she just shook her head, smiled wide on her lips, because I knew the truth. It had been too long to pull that line. “So… talk.”

“Ut-uh, not before food, house rules.” She placed her forearms on the table and leaned forward and looked me over as much as she could. “Wha’d’ya see?” 

“A little girl.”

“Ew, you hate ghost children.” 

“True, however, I don’t think it was a ghost.”

“Well, that would explain the lack of freaking out.”

“I think it was a hallucination.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s  _ so _ much better.”

“Jai,” I sat forward, almost mimicking her position and watched as her eyes locked on mine. “I think you’re right…” She sat back like the world had caved in, shock in her eyes, on her face but her hand slowly rested over her heart. “Don’t be an ass.”

“You’ll forgive me if I take a moment to enjoy the whole prospect of actually being right and having it acknowledged for a change.” She smirked. “What was I right about, again?”

“Something opened a door in my head, and while I don’t remember the dreams, I think that’s where she’s from.”

“So, what? The power around the lake has shaken something loose?”

“No, I think something happened in Montana.”

“Oh… well.” Her brows furrowed and she went silent before she shrugged. “A shunka doesn’t have that kind of power, not what you’re suggesting.”

“But a pack that intelligent over three counties?”

“Yeah, that was a bit odd.”

“Maybe we need to revisit.”

“Sure, can we finish this fuckery of a case first?”

“Are you sure you want to go into that cave?”

“Hell, no. I’m the farthest thing from sure, but…”

“The feeling?”

“Yeah.” 

The waitress took that moment to set the two burgers down in front of us and I heard Jai hum in appreciation of real food, being that she hadn’t really eaten anything substantial since that morning and had basically expelled all of it on the island. She dug in with gusto and near pornographic noises that would get a laugh out of Dean. 

“What do you think’s in there?” She questioned around a bite of the thick burger.

“Hopefully not a crayfish.” I shrugged, and dug into the fries first, a habit I had always had. “But, probably more pictographs.

“You know,” she pointed a fry at me. “The cave we were in earlier, that wasn’t Dylan’s cave.”

“How do you know?”

The words  _ I don’t know _ came out more like a hum as one shoulder rose and fell, but she sighed. “No one’s been in there in a long time.”

“And you’re sure?”

“No wax, no evidence of fire, no human contact with the pictographs because humans suck and have to touch just about everything, and more importantly, there’s still the whole  _ nothing _ deal.”

“So, if it was Dylan’s…”

“Would have been some trace evidence even if it was on the slightly weird side like the campfire. Remember, lack of evidence is still evidence.”

“So this… nothing... was different from the campsite nothing?”

“Oh, yeah, totally.”

“Okay, so what do we got?”

She smirked at me, and I waited for it before she winked. “Nothing.”

“Asshole.” I went back to my burger, as she continued to chuckle across the table from me.

“Should I call Cas again?”

“You know,” I sat up, “as much I hate that you called him to begin with…” She poised for an argument but I didn’t have one, I really just needed to tell her. “Thank you.”

That got a bit of a choking sound out of her. “Wow,” she swallowed, “two rarely heard compliments in one sitting. You really aren’t feeling well, are you?”

“Fuck off.” 

She was quiet for a moment before she cleared her throat. “I know I probably should have asked, but to be honest, it was scaring the hell out of me. One; you never dream, so to be having nightmares is something... well, it’s disconcerting, and two; your dad?”

“I don’t remember them,” I sighed, “but if I mentioned him, I agree, things may have escalated to the point of needing a little divine intervention.”

“You know, I never imagined being right would feel this good.”

“You’re full of shit, you know.”

“I know, but it’s fun to yank your chain.” She pointed at my half touched burger. “Eat your damn food.”

~~~~~

She went on to explain on the trip back to the motel that the cold feeling on the lake was more of an unnatural chill from something ghost related than the weather and wind that blew along the surface, but the inability to pinpoint it was something that really upset her. She didn’t like the unknown, and I had to agree that it was a little off-putting.

Preparation for the journey in the morning didn’t take as long as we both thought, especially since the only thing changing was the type of clothing we were wearing. Jai had specially designed hiking pants made, ones that were waterproof and could hold just about anything she needed, complete with so many damn pockets I wasn’t sure how they were supposed to stay up without falling to her ankle. 

However, when she handed me a pair -- tailored to my measurements the first time she brought them out and suggested them during another hunt -- I was more than happy to accept. They were a godsend when the last thing you needed was to be trapped with a bulky backpack.

It was later on in the shower, when my mind was at ease, and not focused on the case at hand that things seemed to steer towards the unusual. Well, unusual for us. She was out getting snacks from the adjoining deli, probably snatching a bottle of wine to add to our growing collection since we had finally found the wine cellar and the spectacular assortment my father had gathered, when it happened.

The bathroom was warm, the water pressure amazing, and the heat from the spout was on point to cook a lobster, just the way I liked it. She had showered before, just enough to ease the tension in her body, leaving me with enough hot water to turn my skin red. But I wasn’t just in there to clean, I was in there to wash away the sore muscles, the weird feelings of dread that crept up on me. I was there to forget.

Hair washed, body cleansed, I stepped out to dry off, facing the mist on the mirror, and I turned on the faucet, only enough to get the toothbrush wet before adding the paste. I looked up quickly, taking in my own face, and raised a hand to wipe the fog that had settled on it again. In the corner of the mirror stood a person, dressed in black, blood on her face, eyes wide, staring at me.

I couldn’t move. For all my years of training and hunting… I couldn’t move. Her clothes were soaked in blood, face half hidden in the shadows, but I knew she was dead, whoever she was. Her eyes were bloodshot, as if she had been strangled, the black around them told me of her years beyond the veil, and her skin was ashen, yet she was still familiar.

I clenched my hands against the porcelain, toothbrush dropped into the sink and tried to breathe. Her hand reached out, the icy cold feel of it inches from my shoulder before she seemed to float closer. I counted.

“One, two… three,” and there was a strange flashback to the lights moving overhead, street lights and their passing before I could get my body to stop shaking enough to take action. 

I spun on her, face to face with whatever  _ she _ was and she opened her mouth, black teeth and the smell of death filling my sight and the room just before she screamed.

I moved, yanked the door open and stepped out into the chill of the room, turning quickly to the now empty bathroom, steam wafting from the bright light, and the door to the room opened. 

Jai stepped in, a brown bag in her hand and she halted, looking from me to the light. 

“G? You okay?” 

I swallowed, nodded, and crossed my arms over the towel that I wore before she locked the door, dropped the bag on the table and made her way past me to the bathroom. I didn’t move from the spot as she yanked the curtain aside, looked around the small area and turned off the water, before giving me a shake of her head.

“It’s gone.” 

That got me to blink because how would she know anything was there to begin with. My eyes drifted from the bathroom to watch her move towards her back, unzipping a nearly untouched zipper and she pulled out a new toothbrush, before stepping over to hand it to me.

“Leave the door open, go finish up.” It wasn’t an order, more of a friendly suggestion that propelled me into gear, got me to move as I gently took the new toothbrush from her. 

She stepped into the bathroom, grabbed the one from the sink and tossed it in the trash before moving out and going back to what she had intended to do when she stepped in. Remove all of the goodies she had collected from the bag. I did what I was told, stepping back into the room, and kept the door open while I brushed and got ready for bed. 

She was sitting on her own side when I managed to finish, socked feet crossed at the ankles, laptop beside her, bag of popcorn on the side table, but it was the show that played on screen that got me. She paused in her useless attempt to not look at the bag she grabbed for, and set her eyes on me, taking them from the screen.

“Too much?” She gestured to the “Ghost Adventures” episode, and Zak Bagans, who was currently yelling at a ghost, trying to antagonize it. “I can change it.”

“No,” I sighed, flopping down on the bed. She reached over to her right, grabbed a bag of potato chips and handed them to me. “I need some comic relief.”

“You think this is comic?” She huffed. “This is pure torture. I mean… he’s antagonizing a demon, again, not to mention they’re at the Crowley house… again. Wait,” her long pause was more for drama than anything else. “We’ve seen this one, haven’t we?”

“Probably, it is our go-to.” I ripped open the bag and grabbed a chip, crunching down on it as she finally got irritated enough to snatch the bag of popcorn off the table in order to eat it. “How was the gift shop?”

“Eh,” she shrugged. “Seen better but we are up in the middle of fucking nowhere, Oregon, so…” she waved her hand, “there’s that. On a good note, they had popcorn and chips, which makes this whole rerun bullshit more entertaining.”

“You and your popcorn.” I knew what she was doing, and it was working, because the smile crept up on me. 

“So, what was it?”

“A woman,” I answered honestly. 

“Another memory?”

“Not sure, she looked… familiar in a way, I guess.”

“Hmm,” was all I got from her, that and a little nod before her phone went off between us. With a huff, she reached over and grabbed it, flicked her finger across the screen and turned it towards me. “Boys say hi.”

I waved in her general direction, and caught her typing out of my peripheral. I couldn’t talk to them right now, not with everything going on, and apparently she couldn’t either, because she muted it and set it back down. That just got me more curious.

Without missing a beat, she settled into the pillows, grabbed the popcorn, and gestured to the TV. “I need a night off, besides Bagans will get jealous.”

“I’m sure he will.” 

With a smirk, she focused on the show and the bag of Smart Food beside her. The annoying crunch of the popcorn and her presence seemed to calm me, even with what I knew about the itch under her skin. 

It didn’t take long to fade into sleep, the chip bag beside me, and the sound of Aaron freaking out filling the room. 

~~~~~

I woke with a start the next morning, to the bright line of sun that streamed in through the open seam of the curtains. Jai was sitting up at the table, laptop open, foot on the other chair as she looked out into the backyard. Her elbow was up, finger across her lip and there was a coffee mug beside her that long ago stopped steaming. 

Sitting up in bed was what caught her attention, drawing it from the sunrise beyond the glass and she slowly turned to look at me.

“Sorry,” she shrugged.

“Wasn’t you,” I coughed out, the air in the place dry as hell, but I grabbed the phone from the charger and drew it closer, not bothering to open it. “Why are you up?”

“Edgy, I guess,” she put her foot down and leaned her elbows on the table. “You ready for today?”

“Still in my jamas, Jai.”

“Not what I meant, asshat.”

“No, not really.”

“Yeah, me either.”

“Something up? What are you researching?”

“Nothing,” she closed the lid, “just a thought, turned out to be…”

“Nothing, got it.”

“Everything about this case comes down to that one word, doesn’t it?”

“Running trend.”

“Bagel?” She suddenly stood, and proceeded to pull on her boots.

“Sure. Not toasted.” 

With a roll of her eyes, she slipped on her coat. “You’d think after all these years I’d probably know that.”

“Reminders are always good.”

“Good, remind me to smother you with a pillow tonight.”

“Grab me a Cran-apple, please.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She yanked the door open, letting in the light and the chill of the morning before disappearing into it.

The phone in my hand vibrated, getting me to look down at the message from Chris.

**Chris:** _ We set sail at ten. _

Are we pirates now? 

But the only response I sent was a thumbs up. 

Inside, buried deep down, or maybe not nearly deep enough, was the cold dread that this was very, very wrong. The problem was I couldn’t really voice it without Jai coming to my defense and going right along with it, taking my side, because that was what she always did, and she needed to figure this out. 

We both did.


	6. Jai

**Jai**

Of course the wind had to be blowing today, which rocked the multiple boats in the water, including the one that I stood in the middle of, making sure the harness was secure for about the fifteen billionth time. We were watching as they lowered the rope from the winch trucks above, the thick length of rope descending from nearly a thousand feet up.

“You sure that’s safe?” I asked for the twelfth time, getting only a reassuring smile from Chris as Gwen checked off things in the pockets of her pants again not even bothering to look up. “I mean, be honest, it’s not going to fall over the side, is it?”

“Jai,” she grumbled, “relax.”

“I’m relaxed,” I whispered, watching the ranger on the boat closest to the falls reach out and grab the end of the rope. “Totally relaxed.”

“Once they’re down, we’ll start hooking you up.” Ranger Steve stepped up between us, catching all of our attention, taking mine away from the thirty-five foot climb ahead of me. “Who’s going first?”

Chris lowered his gaze, binoculars in his hand and glanced between me and Gwen. “Smallest first?”

“Fuck off,” I snipped back, but the smile on his face told me that he only said it to get some sort of reaction out of me, proud of himself that it had actually worked. “How high’s the ceiling?”

“From what we can tell you’re looking at about an eight foot ceiling, but we can’t guarantee that it stays that high.” 

“So, we’re going in blind?” I nodded, because that just makes everything better. “Don’t you have some sort of… I don’t know, drone or waterproof elf you can send in to take a peek around?”

“Elf,” Gwen snickered quietly.

“Jai, this place has never been documented before.” The older Wesson spoke up.

“That doesn’t make it any better, Chris,” I grumbled, patting down the pockets to take inventory. “You know, this is about the time in my life when I wished I smoked, or drank, or did pot…”

“You do.” Gwen rolled her eyes.

“No,” I sneered sarcastically, “those are edibles, there’s a difference.”

“Are you nervous?” Sarah grinned, which got me to look at the way she sat relaxed on one of the seats towards the back of the boat, elbows to her knees, calmly looking at all the weird shit going on around her.

“Me? Nervous?” I laughed. “Not a chance. I just…” I looked at the wall of rock and loose gravel before us, the still rushing flow of the water cascading over the side, and the prospect of scaling the side of a volcanic structure. “Not nervous at all.”

“Okay, they’re in position.” Steve announced.

“Goddammit.” I sighed and looked over at Gwen, her eyes narrowed on the prize. “You or me?”

“You went first last time,” she shrugged at me, like this was some sort of competition. 

I wanted to reply that I always went first, that this was a thing with us, but she just looked so damned excited. I closed my eyes, drew in a breath, hands clenching on my waist, tightening in the belt loops, and I nodded.

“Okay,” I agreed, opening them to look right at her, “okay, but there’s rules.”

“You can’t pull the big sister card, Jai,” she fucking grinned. “I will always be taller than you.”

“Stop being an ass.” I snapped, grabbing the winch hook from Chris’s hand when the boat was close enough and I stepped up to fasten it to her harness, the safety rope having already been connected. “Get in, get in position, and send out a flare, a radio signal… something. It’s that simple.”

“Look,” she put her hand over mine as I argued with the hook, getting me to look up at her. “I know you’re… well, you’re you, but I swear I got this.”

“I know,” I nodded, so much that it started to hurt my neck before I pulled my hand away, “I know you do, G, and I trust you, but I just can’t shake this feeling.”

“The one you’ve had since we walked into town.”

“Drove actually,” I smirked and she only replied with a shake of her head.

“Good?”

I drew in a deep breath. “As good as we’re going to get.”

“Then… climb on.” 

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Asshole.”

“You know I love your nicknames.”

I wasn’t sure if I hated her more for trying to calm my nerves or needed to look deeper at hers. Either way it didn’t matter because she was across the boat and onto the one holding steady at the side of the rock face before I could come up with a witty reply. 

Sitting back watching from this far away, the only thing I could hear was the beat of my heart and the rush of the blood in my veins competing against the sound of the water barreling down over the rocks. 

She looked small in comparison from this distance, watching her move up at a set pace, hands grabbing rocks, her boots hitting all of the sturdy footholds she could find along the way and suddenly she was gone from sight.

I held my breath, hand on the walkie, gripping it tight enough to break it. “Come on,” I whispered only loud enough to break through the gushing sound. “Come on, G, pick it up.” And the sounds around me faded into silence. “Gwen.”

_ “You are not going to believe this.” _ The walkie chirped to life and I felt everything in me give way to elation, to relief and I drew in a deep breath.  _ “This is fucking amaz… Jai… ass up… gotta…” _

“Gwen?” I barked into the walkie as the signal broke off. “Gwen, talk to me!” Nothing. This time it was all static. “Fuck me!” I hooked the radio to my belt, grabbed the second safety line and snapped it onto the back of my harness. “Wesson!” Chris turned, eyes wide, mouth agape as his skin paled. “Get me that rope!”

I didn’t fear the heights as I moved up the face at a grueling pace. It had been a long time since I had rock climbed, most of it having been done on an inside course and nothing nearly this height, but Gwen wasn’t answering and I was swearing at her the whole way up. 

Of course, most of what I said was empty threats, just a way to keep my brain from thinking the worst, and it probably wasn’t the healthiest way to go, but it was getting me up and over the edge of the cliff and onto the solid ground of the cave floor before I let the fact that I was sitting on the edge of of a thirty-five foot drop get to me.

The harness was the first thing to go, dropping down to the rock with an audible thump, and the next thing in my hand was the 9mm that Sam had gotten me for my birthday. I aimed it, scanned the mouth, saw nothing but darkness, and flicked on the light attached to my coat before taking one step forward, fuck checking in. 

Both hands on the gun. Steady as we go. Eyes clear. Everything in focus. Heartbeat steady. Breathe in… breathe out.

I slowly moved in, letting the way everything slipped away escape my attention and I disappeared into the darkness. It was the feeling that got me, the way it became absent, fading to nothing and I stopped, the only thing on me in motion was the rise and fall of my chest -- and my eyes -- as they scanned everything illuminated by the light on me.

Internally, I should have known, externally, well, the whole thing was messed up. I couldn’t imagine where Gwen had gone considering I couldn’t see a damn thing. There wasn’t even an echo when I kicked a rock out with my foot, so the moment the glaring light of an emergency flare blinded me, I was definitely thrown off.

The instant I raised one arm up to protect my eyes was the same expanse of time it took to feel the weight on the barrel, pushing it down.

“You’re not going to need that.” Gwen’s voice broke through all of it, and my world seemed to fill with noise once more. Blinking away the orange haze in my vision, I scrubbed at my eyes with the ball of my hand while glaring at the woman before me, now holding the flare away. 

“You suck!” But my anger at her, my fear, was fading. “What happened?”

“Rock’s so thick it cut out the communications.” She shrugged it off like it was nothing. “Not my fault.”

“Yeah, well,” I stashed the gun and traded it in for the unlit flare she held out, “you still suck.”

“Let’s go back.” 

“Why, we just got here?”

“Hate to say it, but we’re gonna need back-up.”

I rolled my eyes like the petulant child I was. “I hate back-up.”

She patted me on the head. “I know you do.”

Back at the beginning we went, and that was when the whole knowledge of the height thing came into play and I made damn sure I stayed very far away from the edge. Not even the view -- and the prospect of making a few friends very jealous with Instagram posts -- could get me to move closer.

I stood just outside the line of light as Gwen went through the pack she had brought up, looking for certain items as she spoke with Chris before he ascended. She handed off three more lamps, all of which I turned on, and finally ended the transmission.

“Can we go exploring now?” I grumbled, “I’m getting bored.”

“Yep, just got to make sure we have enough of these,” she held up the small light and waved at me to move on. With her in the lead, it didn’t take much time at all to find ourselves back at the “meeting point” or where she scared the hell out of me. “Tunnel goes this way.”

I stopped, watching her place a light in the wall, and looked to the right. It actually looked as if the tunnel forked, but as I stepped closer, I could feel the difference. Without an ounce of self-preservation, I reached out quickly into the darkness of what I thought was another entrance, only to be met with a solid rock wall.

“Anyone ever tell you not to touch things?” She barked from behind.

“Bobby told me once.” I ran my hand down the cool, wet stone. “Didn’t take, I guess.”

“Come on. This way.”

Curiosity satisfied, I moved away, following her down the path. “Jesus, how far did you get? You were only in here for about ten minutes.”

“About a half-mile, maybe.” 

“You and your long legs.”

“It wasn’t ten minutes.”

“Yes, it was. I timed it the  _ whole _ way up, trust me.”

“I have twenty.”

This got me to stop. “You have twenty?” She glanced back at me, shrugging. “Are we looking at some sort of time thingy?”

“No, there’s no time  _ thingy _ going on. You didn’t factor in how long  _ you _ were in the tunnel.”

Starting up again, the two of us continued on in the tunnel. “I refuse to factor anything into this God-forsaken case until we’re a nine-hundred miles south sipping mai tais on some beach somewhere.”

“You’re not going to start singing are you?”

“I had thought of the Rescue Rangers theme song, but it seems pointless now.”

“Oh, good, that’s all I need is cartoon theme songs.”

I stopped the instant the narrow tunnel opened to a cavern, and swallowed because this wasn’t creepy at all.

“Well, now all we need is a funny-looking, cave-dwelling, sea serpent.”

“One; it’s a lake, not a sea…” She paused in her ramblings, which got me to concentrate on her.

“That’s all you got? One?” but shining a light on her told me the reason she stopped. Her eyes were locked on the pictographs drawn on the wall directly in front of her. “Oh, you have got to be joking.”

“Looks like we found another legend.” She took a few lamps, handed them to me and pointed me in the opposite direction. “Light it up.”

“You know, a flare would work just as well.” I shrugged, felt more than saw her roll her eyes, and watched as she stepped away before turning to the task. “What do you think this one says? More hot, buttered, lobster rolls?”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Maybe, but since everything is centered around this Skell and Llao thing, you can’t be too care…” I stopped dead at the edge of the cavern, not thirty feet from where I started and looked down at the strange way the floor looked. “STOP!”

“What?” 

“Stop walking. The floor is an illusion.” I reached into the pocket next to my left leg and grabbed the flare gun, loaded, and aimed for the ceiling. “Fire in the hole.”

The room filled with a bright golden light as I searched for Gwen, who stood almost directly across from me. There, not more than four-feet from where I stood, was an edge, one that plummeted down into a depth that I didn’t want to think about, and just ahead was where it fell off. 

I pressed my back against the wall and took a few steadying breaths. “Oh, hell.”

“Jai,” Gwen’s voice shook me from the fear of passing out, or having an actual heart attack from the fear of falling. The light from the flare still gave me enough time to see her leaning around the edge of another tunnel. “You might want to come over here.”

“Are you fucking out of your mind? We need to go back.”

“No,” she shook her head, straightening so that I could see her as she held the flare close, “you really need to see this.”

I counted my steps, kept my arm out to my side as I moved along the wall, taking up the lights I had left and following the path we had already laid down until I found myself within three feet of her. 

“I hope to God this is the last tunnel.”

“Me too.” 

She ducked in and I was right behind her, leaving yet another lamp on the outside. This tunnel was shorter, not in height but in length and opened to a strange pool -- twenty or so feet wide, and unfathomably deep -- illuminated from underneath, and what was in there was like nothing I had ever seen before. Long shapes, almost human silhouettes filled the bright blue water, but they were floating.

“It looks bottomless.”

“If it’s anything like the cavern outside, probably is. Probably goes right down to the mantle.”

“Mantle isn’t the right word.”

“But you know what I mean, G. This is still active, so something’s keeping it from coming up through either the vents or the dike.”

“Well, it can stay down there.”

“Yeah, hopefully our crayfish listens too. That’s all we need is boiled crustacean for dinner before we figure this thing out.”

“Quiet.” She held my shirt, pressing me against the wall. “Listen.”

_ Nothing. _

There was only silence, but as I stood there, my eyes drifted to the ceiling, to the pictographs there, blurred by the reflection of the water, by the shimmering lights. 

“What do you feel?”

I shook my head at her. “Nothing.”

“Look.” She gestured to the water, her questions quickly coming to a halt.

“Holy…” I stepped away, closer to the water’s edge and realized what I was looking at. “They’re bodies.”

“Some of them are just skeletons floating in clothes.” Gwen whispered, joining me beside the pool, crouching down. “Hikers. Look at the boots. Didn’t the article say that most could last about a century?”

“I don’t wanna look at this anymore.” I slipped back, shaking my head. Flashes of Hell and the whole  _ River Styx  _ scene clouded my vision, had my stomach turning, and my heart sunk. 

“We have to get them out.”

This had me wide-eyed and very much present. “Get them out? Seriously? You want to go in there and get out a bunch of dead bodies?”

“Jai…”

“No, you have either hit your head  _ really _ hard this time or completely fucking lost your mind. You don’t know what’s in there.”

“Jai, would you…”

I grabbed her by the arm and attempted to tug her up. “We’re leaving here, and we’re getting you in the car and we’re going home because there is something seriously wrong…”

“Dylan is in there!” She snapped, and I froze, sinking down onto my knees.

“What?”

She put both hands on my face after shaking off my hold, and gently turned my head in the direction of the water. 

“Dylan is in there,” she repeated quietly, close to my ear as I scanned the surface of the water only to find she was right. 

Not ten feet from us was the man from Chris’s picture and his son -- not that I could remember the kid’s name -- floating, hands by their sides, everything but their faces under the water. 

“Deprivation.” I whispered, suddenly looking up at the ceiling. “This is where they had Ranger Dave. This is the spot.”

“Are you sure?” 

I shrugged off her hands, unzipped the black jacket, and began to pull the stuff from my pockets.

“What the hell are you doing? You just said we couldn’t go in there.”

“Dave was alive.” I mumbled on. “They kept him in a stasis.”

“How do you know?”

“They only got rid of him because he woke up.” Kicking off my boots, I moved to the water’s edge.

“Jai, don’t.”

“You can’t. I have to because you can’t,” I swallowed, eyes right on her. “You hate the water, Gwen.” I fought back the panic in my chest. “You can’t swim.”

“I most certainly…” and I didn’t hear the rest of her protest as I dove in and under the dead. 

It didn’t take much to find the boy in the haze of blue and make my way to the surface. The water, despite probably never seeing the light of day, and the temperature of the general area around Crater Lake, was warm and inviting, almost enough to keep someone from getting hypothermia.

When I broke through, I searched the shore, instantly spotting Gwen waiting with an arm out, giving me a point to focus on. I grabbed the boy and pulled him to my chest, head above the water and swam with him to shore, just as the shouts came from the hall. Chris stepped through first, eyes going right to the water, and the man floating there.

“Get the medics!” Gwen yelled above the rush of fluid in my ear as I handed him over to her. She grabbed the kid tightly by the shirt and hauled him up onto the gritty  _ shore _ . Chris stood dumbfounded. “Get the medics now, Wesson!”

With little to no debate, Chris turned and disappeared from sight. It was Sarah that slid up beside Gwen, a thermal blanket already unwrapped and read for when the boy cleared the water. Gwen looked at me concerned as I treaded water, eyes on the boy, but when I glanced at her, she only nodded. That was my cue to go back in, but as I dove, I saw it.

Down deep where the bright blue of the water faded to more of a navy then into pure darkness, was the intense glow of two large orbs. I struggled to keep from panicking completely as I moved towards Dylan, keeping my thoughts on the fact that as soon as he was out, so was I. 

It was the best I could do. 

Grabbing Dylan around the neck, I struggled to keep the two of us afloat, barely being able to move myself as my legs and arms gave out. Swimming was definitely something I was going to have to add to my cross-training. This was not good. It wasn’t until I was closer to shore that I really started to fade, but the eyes in the water were growing closer and my heart was racing as I drifted in reach of Gwen.

She snatched my shirt, tugging on it, but I shook my head. “Take him. I can get,” I sunk a little before popping back to the surface when Dylan’s weight shifted off me, and I sucked in a lungful of air, cursing. “I got it.”

“Sure you do, short stuff,” Chris’s voice huffed as his hands grabbed me by both shoulders and yanked me up onto the rocks beside him, a blanket automatically going around my body. He rubbed down my arms, covered me with another thermal blanket over my head and sat back on his ass.

“Where’s Gwen?” Now I was shivering, but he just pulled his knees up to rest his elbows on them and pointed at the woman over by the entrance. She was giving orders to the multiple medics that were currently back-boarding Dylan. “How’s the kid?”

“Breathing,” Chris whispered, moving closer to me. He wrapped his arms around me as I shivered from the temperature change. “Let’s get you moving and dried off.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, wanting nothing more than to be nowhere near this water. Gwen and I were definitely going to have a talk about ancient monsters when we got home.

~~~~~

The trip out of the cave was uneventful considering everything that happened inside. The warning to leave the other bodies where they were was heeded for the most part, but over the course of the next several hours, teams were in and out, cataloging the bodies that continued to float in the weird blue water.

“Bioluminescence.” Gwen said as she walked up behind me. I had been staring out at the lake for a while, caught up in the movement of the boats in and out of the cove, but the moment she spoke shook me from my stupor.

“What?” I questioned, pulling the blanket tighter around me. I couldn’t shake the cold, or the strange feeling even more now, but just like she always did, Gwen gave me space and time to process everything. 

“The water,” she raised a brow at me. I blinked away the tiredness and nodded because I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. “Have the blood tests come back?”

“The ones you ordered to make sure I wasn’t turning into an alien? No, and unless you’re getting into that lab yourself, I have a feeling it will be a few days.” I moved away from the window, closer to the fire they had built up for me in the hearth and sat down on the rocker beside it. “I’m not, you know.”

“Not what?”

“Going to turn into an alien.” I narrowed my eyes at her, wondering if she was the one more affected by the whole deal then me but she just shrugged, sat down in the opposite chair and held up a chart. “So, what are you going on about water for? There’s a whole lake, a whopping four point six trillion gallons, so whatever you need the aqua for, have at it.”

“The fact that you know such a random statistic doesn’t mean you can get away with being a dick,” she monotoned, “and it wasn’t the lake I was talking about. It was the pond water in our little stasis tank.”

“So, what about it? You said bioluminescence, what of it?”

“That’s what kept the water blue. That and whatever lived in it, that helped create it, is what helped keep the bodies the way they were.”

“The way they were? Food for whatever seven-thousand year old volcano monster lives at the bottom of it. I saw the eyes, Gwen, I know.”

“You  _ thought _ you saw eyes in a pool of contaminated water, which is why we’re running blood tests, not to see if you turn into an alien.”

“I don’t know. Aliens could be fun.” I shrugged. “Better than knowing I ingested some sort of biochemical contaminant.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Seal it off?”

“Seems like it’s coming down to that.”

“Shouldn’t Chris be in here while we talk about the fate of his park? I mean this is his territory.”

“I’m right here,” he spoke up from behind me, making me jump a foot and a half before I growled deeply at him. He smiled, let a gentle hand run down my arm, but the grin was etched with concern as he pulled up a small stool beside me. “So, what should I be here for?”

“Your cave needs to be surveyed for a way out.” Gwen started, glancing over the paperwork in front of her. “And then sealed off.”

“You’re kidding right? You two just opened up so much history for the people around here. The pictographs in the main cavern alone are…”

“You mean the one with the fake floor and plummet into the depths of hell? That main cavern?” I sighed. “It’s dangerous. You don’t know where it leads, you don’t know how it gets in, and you don’t know how it gets out. Making sure that’s the only tunnel and blocking it would make it so your missing hiker numbers go down, leaving it open is just asking for trouble.”

“You can’t fight what’s here, Chris. It’s too big, there’s too many unknowns, and whatever it is... it’s killing people.”

“Okay, you both have valid points but can you imagine what this means?”

“Can’t you just take the small cave?” I snapped, “can you just be happy with the one that doesn’t eat people?”

“Relax, Tiny Dancer.” Gwen whispered.

“I am relaxed,” I couldn’t do more than say it through clenched teeth because I just wanted to punch him. “I’m not coming back here when people start disappearing again.” I let my eyes land right on hers. “I hate this place.”

“I’m sure the feelings are mutual now that you stole its next meal.” Chris sighed, rubbed his forehead and looked between us. “Fine, we seal it off, but not before NPS has the time to survey it.”

“Then I hope you have a bigger boat, cuz you’re going to need it.”

“Is that a  _ Jaws _ reference?” Gwen smiled, which just got me to roll my eyes. She turned to Chris, making sure to have his full attention. “We have someone in our contacts that is an expert at demolitions and will know how to shut down the cave without bringing down the whole mountain with it.”

“Great.” Chris nodded, but he didn’t look impressed in the very least. All three of us turned to Sarah as she stepped up quietly from behind Gwen. “You okay?”

“There’s word from the hospital,” she stated softly and I watched Chris rise to his feet, fear setting in as he clenched his jaw. “DJ’s awake, and Dylan’s vitals have stabilized.”

“Thank God.” Chris sighed, sitting back down. 

“So, the kid does have a name,” I mumbled to myself, nodding as I turned to look into the fire, “good to know.”

I pulled the blanket tighter, shivering again, but this time at the strange vision of the eyes in the darkness.

~~~~~

The water at the motel had the pressure alright, it just didn’t have the heat I needed. No matter how long I stood underneath it, the cold edge didn’t give, and I found myself wrapped in not only my comforter but also Gwen’s extra holding onto a piping hot cup of soup nestled against the pillows and the headboard of the bed.

“I feel like you’re doing this on purpose,” she teased as she glanced over at me from her laptop sitting on her naked side of the bed. “You know, I’m not going to baby you when we leave here, so indulge all you can, this will soon be over.”

“You know what I’m curious about?”

“Most folks?”

“Ha ha,” I rolled my eyes, “seriously, though. Stasis, deep, life-ending stasis without the actual use of life-support. How did they get the nutrients they needed to sustain life in that water? How did it feed on them?”

“Maybe it didn’t need them to stay alive.” She typed away, before grabbing the phone from the bed beside her and tapping out a reply. “Maybe it just needed them to decompose.”

“Can we not bring up how much human remains I swam through to get them out? Please?”

She suddenly dropped the phone and turned to me, pushing the laptop aside. “Why did you jump in?”

“Because you couldn’t.”

“You do realize I know how to swim.”

“And you realize I’ve seen the panic mode you’ve gone into before at the drop of a hat, or a change of the tide. I couldn’t risk that, and you said it yourself that it looked bottomless, a freak out would have happened in seconds.”

Before the argument could continue, Gwen’s phone --one that usually was set to silent -- dinged. She slowly picked it up, opened it, and stared at the screen with a look of worry that  _ almost _ had me following along.

“What?” I hated the silence, but she didn’t answer. “Gwen, what?”

“Your blood tests came back.” Her voice was deadpan, that couldn’t be good, right?

“And?” I put the soup down and turned on the bed. “Bancroft… and?”

“And,” she glanced at me. “You’re human.”

“Not normal?”

“You have never been nor will you ever be “normal”,” she stated looking me dead in the eye, holding it long enough that I relented, sighed and sat back, which was her cue to go back to the phone. “It all came out relatively within the parameters of what a healthy,” she glanced up at me, “however old you are happens to be, which again… normal. So…”

“No, there’s no  _ so _ ,” I whined because today was just too long of a day. “Would you stop fucking around and tell me why you look like death won and I’m about to be locked in a hospice unit?”

“There’s one thing.”

“Okay, what is it?”

“Your cholesterol is too high, the doctor’s note at the bottom is recommending a change in diet.”

I blinked at her a few times before huffing back on the bed. “I hate you!”

“You love me.”

“How exactly do I have high cholesterol when I have an angel that literally puts me back together sometimes? Unless you think it’s from…” I paused, eyes wide and she waited patiently for me to finish. “You can’t get it from the water, right? Bodies aren’t high in that shit, are they?”

“No, it’s not from ingesting anything in that pond.” 

You know, I really was waiting for the day that she’d get sick of my shit.

“Maybe it’s your other half?”

“So decomposing bodies in stasis water won’t do it, but my need for tea parties will cause it to climb? Funny,” I ran a hand over my face, “I honestly thought those would set off more of a blood sugar condition, with the whole title and all.”

“They’re not actually tea parties, are they? You don’t ask if they’d like one cube or two, or offer biscuits, do you?”

“Could you say that last part with a little bit less of an accent? You’re not the Queen of England, and put your pinky down.” I huffed, watching her concentrate on the laptop, and she smiled. “What are our plans?” 

“Bed, shower, and I’d like to head over to the hospital now that Dylan’s awake and get his take on things that happened, because you can’t leave that whole thing untouched.”

“Yeah, kinda curious myself.” I slipped out of her comforter and tossed it on the bed at her feet before straightening mine and curling up with the pillow, and “all new Ghost Adventures” about to play on the Travel Channel. 

“You didn’t finish your soup.”

“Change of diet,” I shrugged, “I’m waiting for a nice juicy steak.”

“Not helping.”

“Doesn’t matter, it’s the truth.” I shrugged, pulled the blankets tighter and sighed. Definitely warmer, but not exactly my normal temp. I guess that was to be expected from some weird blue water, but at least I wasn’t turning into an alien yet. 

With a deep sigh, I settled into the normality that was our life, Zak and Aaron on-screen shenanigans and Gwen’s quiet breathing as her fingers flew over the keyboard had me lulled into a sense of security and familiarity that sent me off to sleep in no time, with the hopes of no nightmares or being chased by ugly, crayfish, sea monsters.

It’s good to have hope sometimes.

~~~~~

If I wasn’t so damned tired still, I would be questioning why Chris Wesson was standing in front of our room door, but I knew he was inquisitive and needed to know just about everything, just like every hunter out there, but it was the shy look on his face when he turned to me that had me curious. 

I held up the two coffee cups in my hand, steam still escaping them as my fingers held tightly to the bag of goodies in my left. “If I had known you were coming, I would have grabbed you one. Makes me look like a bad host now.”

“No, it’s good.” He smiled but it seemed a little forced. “I just came by to tell you DJ’s getting released today, and Dyl… he’s still a little out of it but he’s up to answering your questions.”

“And you couldn’t text that?” I sat down on the steps, set the coffees aside and looked up at him. He stood there, glancing around, hands stuffed in his pockets, open and vulnerable, until I patted the step beside me, then he got a little fidgety. “Have a seat and you can tell me what’s really bothering you.”

“Honestly...” he sighed, debated, and then finally sat down. “Did you really see something down there?”

“Like a monster?” I grinned, but it didn’t get the reaction I wanted. He frowned and went quiet… almost still. “Listen, what I saw could really have been anything, but what I  _ thought _ at the time was there were two eyes down there, glowing and getting closer. It could have been a crack in the floor, a reflection from something, I don’t know. What I do know is that we’re all alive, the kid’s safe, Henry’s safe, and before you know it, your medicine man will be back on his feet doing his research.”

“Yeah,” he sighed softly, “maybe.”

“So, G… Gwen and I were going to go down to the hospital after breakfast, but” I focused on his profile, watching him take in the growing light of morning. “You wanna grab some real food with us?”

“No, thanks,” he really did smile this time. “I have to meet Sarah at the Henry’s place so that we can check on DJ, you know, a see for yourself kinda thing.”

“I get it, nothing’s better than confirmation.” I reached out, let my hand settle on his shoulder before I ran it down his back and let it drop beside me, comforting the only way I knew how. 

He looked at me a little confused at the touch. “You know, you’re not what I remember.”

I laughed at that because it really was the only way to try and get past what he said. “Don’t think we’ve ever had the pleasure.”

“Yeah, actually, we’ve met before… at Bobby’s.”

“No,” I smiled, “I think I would remember a guy that looks like you.” 

He was beautiful really, eyes having so much depth in them that I wanted to just sink in, black hair that while cut to almost look military was still long enough to run your fingers through, lightly tanned skin that the sun had kissed and made you wonder if there were tan lines somewhere on his body. And he was tall, that was always a plus, able to look Gwen in the eyes.

“It was a long time ago.” he licked his lips, looked down at my hands, and then back up at my face. “You were a bit reckless then.”

“Haven’t changed much if you haven’t noticed.” I shrugged, grabbing the coffee just for something to hold onto. “So what were you doing at the old man’s house?”

“Hunting, actually. Mom had gotten in a bit deeper than she should have with a case and Sarah and me, well, we thought we were ready to take on the world just to save her, so we went to him. He said the right things, did the right things, helped us get her back, but he didn’t say anything about you, even if you were tearing apart his garage looking for parts for… what was it?” He went quiet, searching his memories, “a 1978 Pontiac GTO. Red, I think.”

“Oh, holy shit.” I blinked back the shock. That kid. I remember that kid. “You were that little shit that kept trying to tell me how to put my car back together.”

“I wasn’t wrong about what was going on, was I?” Chris laughed, and it was sweet, good to hear, and I shook my head. 

“Yeah, I don’t usually admit it, but you were right.” I sat back, eyeing him over. “How’d you know?”

“Dad had one, not a 78’ but they all had the same issue eventually.” He shrugged it off like it was nothing and cleared his throat as his phone dinged. “So, I gotta go,” he slowly stood thumbing at his truck. “Let me know when you’re done with breakfast. I’ll meet you at the hospital.”

“Kay,” I gave him a genuine smile and watched him walk away, they were always nice to look at walking away. He glanced at me, hopped into the truck, and backed out of the lot. Leaving me with my thoughts. The door opened slightly behind me and I turned to look up at Gwen’s scowling morning face. “Hey.”

“Hello.” Ooh, not good.

I stood, grabbed the cups and goodies and made it up the steps, slipping in past her. “Got carbs. You’re never going to believe what he just told me.”

Gwen huffed out a  _ “never gonna guess” _ and closed the door behind me.

~~~~~

The hour and twenty minutes it took to get to Crater Lake Surgical Center was probably the longest and the quietest the two of us had ever been on the road. Breakfast was normal, the banter and chatter of everything that had gone on in the last week-ish was familiar but now, heading up to hear a man’s tale of how he survived that long was just… silencing.

My brain wasn’t on high, my thoughts were quiet, my need to talk and fill it was gone and apparently Gwen felt the same, because she was just watching the scenery. Until…

“What do you want to do after this?” That was the question she broke with.

“Home,” I whispered, “boys, Lebanon, doesn’t matter as long as we catch a break.”

“The boys would be nice.” She smirked, still watching the passing mountain views. “Though, home would be too.”

“Yeah, still enough time to catch some rays out by the pool. Maybe call that masseuse you know.”

“Maybe.” She slipped into quiet mode again, and all I could do was smile. 

Of course, the real thing wasn’t what are we doing, it’s how are we getting there? At some point, this stolen baby was going to get recognized, and even with Gwen’s master abilities to hack the RMV, well, we were going to have to switch it up soon. 

I grinned at that one because if we were going to have to give it back, why not give it a little gas.

And the look on her face when I floored it was priceless. Totally worth being bitched at for the next thirty minutes.

~~~~~

Chris was standing in the lobby when we entered, hands tucked deep into the pockets of his jeans, canvas jacket still covering that well-toned upper body. Yeah, I had looked, so sue me, and not because I wanted to pick up another stray but more to the fact that one can always appreciate a fine specimen, of any designation. 

“Hey,” he greeted, giving us both a small smile. He was happy, that was a good sign. “So, Dyl’s in for an MRI right now, Sarah’s at his place. I figured I could give you the lowdown on what’s going on up at the Rim while we wait.”

“Oh, goody,” Gwen huffed, but I knew it was just a cover. She wanted to know about it just as much as I did. “Let’s sit.”

We found a set of four chairs around a small table in the back of the lobby away from prying ears and got comfortable, which meant Gwen sat back with a cup of tea, I squirmed to find a comfy position on the damn squishy seats and Chris, well he just sat there with his elbows on his knees looking at us like we were the funniest things alive.

“So,” he shrugged, with a little smile, and damn did it look good, “the floor of the main cavern fell away to a depths of about twelve-hundred feet. It doesn’t put us below the bottom of the lake, but it sure as hell comes close. That’s not how the water’s getting in though. They found a cave opening at about six-fifty, wide enough to let something in, we’re just not sure what. From the ledge you can get down to the surface of the water, but it’s slippery and not exactly recommended. Other than that, there’s no other way into or out of the cave. Your little pool,” he aimed those brown eyes right on me. “That’s the mystery. Initial analysis came back just water, aside from the whole human remains thing, but that’s it, just water.”

“Okay, so what’s so weird about that?”

“Dyl’s been missing nearly two weeks.” He said it like I was supposed to grasp the concept on that fact alone.

“I know, that’s why you called us.”

“You know what, I’m withholding information, that’s my bad, but his labs,” he looked right at Gwen like this was some sort of big secret. “They came back normal.”

“Okay.”

“Like healthy as an ox normal.” He pulled a folded piece of paper from his back pocket and handed it to Gwen, and while she looked it over, he turned his attention to me, but there was just something in his statement that I couldn’t put my finger on. Except...

I blinked once, then again, and turned my sights on Gwen. “Mine came back normal.”

“No, I said yours came back human, not normal.”

For some strange reason, that was actually a relief to hear. “Yay, I guess,” I shrugged.

“Listen, I’m not going to pretend to understand it, but whatever was keeping them there was really keeping them alive for as long as possible.”

“Two weeks and no sign of malnutrition, no blood levels off, no deoxygenation of the cells or any damage to vital organs.” She read off, which got me to look at her. “An actual stasis chamber.”

“Right,” I nodded, completely in agreement but then I turned to Chris, “so how many dead bodies were in it?”

“Seventy-two.” 

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” I whispered, suddenly feeling my stomach turn as I sat on my ass and leaned my head down between my legs. I wasn’t kidding… I had swam in that shit! 

I felt Gwen’s hand rubbing my back as gently as she could while my world seemed to fade with the waves of nausea. 

It took a bit to come back, to not give into the images in my head, the ones more of hell than the watery grave some poor sap who had decided an innocent hike was a great idea had fallen into, but I made it there. I groaned, reached up and took her by the wrist, moving her hand gently as I sat back and blinked away the little black dots that swarmed my vision.

“You good?” She leaned over, trying to get me to focus on her but I did nothing but wave her off. 

“Fine,” I breathed, but it was the look on Chris’s face that had me confused. “What did I miss?”

“Bobby called.” He didn’t seem all the thrilled about it. “Your demo guy is on his way out. Guess he’s not far from here.”

“Yeah, George is… well, let’s just say he likes his C-4 a little too much,” I winked and Chris shook his head. “Heard from the doc yet?” And there they went exchanging glances again. “What? You know I don’t think I like the fact that the two of you figured out your own sort of non-verbal shit.”

“Dylan slipped back into a coma,” Chris whispered.

“Oh,”  _ crap _ , “damn, I’m sorry.”

Chris waved it off. “Everything else is good, they just think he needs a little more time to adjust.”

“Want us to stick around?”

“No, no.” He slowly got to his feet. “I think I got it from here.” Gwen slowly stood, which made me hop to it, a little shaky still but ready to move because the feelings under my skin were still there. “Thank you for everything.”

“Our pleasure,” Gwen smiled, taking the hand he slowly outstretched to her. “Keep us informed.”

“I will.” He gave her a slight shake before he turned to me, suddenly a little shy with the hand. “Take care.”

“Sure,” I tucked mine in my back pockets, “but, you know, if I need help with a GTO, I know who to call.”

“Yeah, right.” 

“Here.” Gwen held out a business card and I rolled my eyes. I knew this speil. “Number’s on the back, address’ on the front. Password is grizzly bears.”

“Password?”

And at the tone of his voice, I laughed. “You’ll understand.” 

“Stop by whenever you’re on the east coast,” Gwen ignored me, “or give a yell when you think you might need help again.”

“As long as it’s  _ far _ from here.” I added, just for the sake of understanding. 

“Noted.” He stepped away, giving us both a small wave and headed for the elevators. 

I stalled, watching him go, and felt the eyes of the woman beside me burrowing right into my face. “You can stop now.”

“What was that about a car? What did I miss?”

“A quick meeting at Bobby’s not long after we met, I think.” I gave her a bit of an uncertain expression, made my way past her, and out the door. She wasn’t far behind and it didn’t take much for her to catch up before we were right back in the car. “So,” I smirked as I shifted the reliable little car into gear, moving out of the parking spot, “home, James?”

“I’m not calling you “Ms. Daisy”.” She scowled.

“Damn, you ruin all my fun.” I winked at her once more and stepped on the gas, cruising out into the main highway taking us away from the hospital and back to the motel to collect our things. 


	7. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for helping to keep an eye on our girls. I hope you enjoyed our Nano adventure, but every good story must come to an end. Stay tuned to see what kind of trouble these two can keep getting into. <3

**Epilogue**

**_“_ ** _ Everyday I wake up I thank God that you are still a part of me,”  _ Jai sang quietly, slowly turning to a hum as the old hairband melody rolled on. 

The small borrowed car they had traded up the Altima for traveled quietly down the highway seven hours in just before Carlin, Nevada on I-80 east. The sun had set and Gwen, despite everything in her trying to keep awake, was resting her eyes while leaning against the smooth, chilled surface of the window. All was quiet, or at least should have been until Gwen sat up with a start, blinking furiously as if she were trying to focus on something, or get rid of the image of something else. 

“You okay?” Jai whispered, as if she would break some sort of spell being any louder. Reaching over, she turned down the music and waited. “Bad dream?”

“You could say that, but don’t ask me about what.” Gwen huffed and sat back. 

“More of a feeling again, right?” With a sigh of frustration, Gwen nodded. “Don’t sweat it, we’ll stop for the night in a few hours and give the angel a call.”

“I don’t think he’s going to be able to help this, Jai, I honestly don’t.”

“Did he even try last time?”

“He wanted to make sure that the case was done before we dove into something else.” In the bright light of the dashboard, Gwen could see the look of worry on her partner’s face. “Let’s just get to the boys, okay?”

“Sure, I mean the bunker has enough places you can hide out and keep them awake for a change.” She smirked, but it was light, trying to change the mood. “Oh, there’s always the dungeon, unless they have it occupied.”

“That’s gross,” Gwen rolled her eyes, crossing her arms as she rubbed her fingers on her sleeves. “Aren’t you cold?”

“You’re kidding right?” Jai laughed, “It’s like ninety-five in here.”

“There’s just a chill.” 

“Did we pick up a phantom hitchhiker?”

“Doubtful, we are not that lucky.”

“Lucky? Oh, no, I would rather not see another…”

Both jumped at the sound of the ring that blared through the speakers before Jai tapped the console twice, accepting the call from an unknown number.

“Ghostbusters,” she answered quickly, getting a frown from Gwen. “What?”

_ “I’m looking for Jai Lancing, Bobby sent me.” _ A surly male voice stated grumpily over the line.

“Bobby sends a lot of people,” she snipped back, “who are you?”

_ “Are you Lancing?” _

“I’m gonna hang up.”

_ “Trevor Elkins.” _

“Jai Lancing,” she smiled as she replied and she was just doing it to piss the guy off. “Wait, Elkins. Like Daniel Elkins?”

_ “That would be my father.” _

“Wow, that must suck to be you.” Gwen slapped her on the arm getting Jai to glare at her before Gwen gestured for her to get going. “What can I do for you, Mr. Elkins.”

_ “Singer said you were passing through Colorado, got time to stop by Thornton and lend a hand?” _

“A hand with what?” It was a legitimate question.

_ “Well, I got an issue with a gate. _ ”

“Just use some WD-40, should come unstuck.”

_ “Not that kinda gate, smart ass, a gate to Hell.” _ Jai looked wide-eyed at Gwen, who’s jaw had dropped _. “He said you two were some sort of experts.” _

Jai ran a hand down her face, reached out and muted the call. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know, it’s on the way. What do you think?”

“I don’t know, “Jai shrugged, “could be fun.”

“So?”

“So? Do it?”

“Yeah, let’s do it.”

Jai tapped the screen again. “Elkins, text me the address.”


End file.
